News
- Genetics
An Indigenous people in the Philippines have the most Denisovan DNA
Genetic comparisons crown the Indigenous Ayta Magbukon people as having the most DNA, 5 percent, from the mysterious ancient hominids.
- Life
Scientists have a new word for birds stealing animal hair
Dozens of YouTube videos show birds stealing hair from dogs, cats, humans, raccoons and even a porcupine — a behavior rarely documented by scientists.
- Health & Medicine
Colds and other common respiratory diseases might surge as kids return to school
Recent historically low levels of some respiratory illnesses may lead to outbreaks this fall and winter, creating disruptions as kids return to school.
- Health & Medicine
Ripples in rats’ brains tied to memory may also reduce sugar levels
Brain signals called sharp-wave ripples have an unexpected job: influencing the body’s sugar levels, a study in rats suggests.
- Health & Medicine
6 answers to parents’ COVID-19 questions as kids return to school
Universal masking in schools could prevent a bumpy 2021–22 schoolyear and keep kids, many of whom are too young to be vaccinated, safe, experts say.
- Physics
Windbreaks, surprisingly, could help wind farms boost power output
Wind farm performance could be improved by 10 percent by using low barriers to increase the wind speed directed at the turbines, simulations suggest.
- Health & Medicine
What kids lost when COVID-19 upended school
Researchers are starting to tally how a year and a half of pandemic has left many children struggling academically and emotionally.
- Climate
The new UN climate change report shows there’s no time for denial or delay
Human-caused climate change is unequivocally behind extreme weather events from heat waves to floods to droughts, a massive new assessment concludes.
- Physics
Colliding photons were spotted making matter. But are the photons ‘real’?
Smashups of particles of light creating electrons and positrons could demonstrate the physics of Einstein’s equation E=mc2.
- Health & Medicine
Schools are reopening. COVID-19 is still here. What does that mean for kids?
Children do get COVID-19, and some become very sick and even die. But the disease’s long-term effects on kids remain uncertain.
- Animals
Squirrels use parkour tricks when leaping from branch to branch
Squirrels navigate through trees by making rapid calculations to balance trade-offs between branch flexibility and the distance between tree limbs.
- Space
A lunar magnetic field may have lasted for only a short time
New analyses of Apollo-era lunar rocks suggest that any magnetosphere that the moon ever had endured for no more than 500 million years.
