News
- Health & Medicine
A new drug lowers levels of a protein related to ‘bad’ cholesterol
The next clinical trial will determine if a drug targeting a protein that carries fat and cholesterol reduces the risk of heart attack and stroke.
- Earth
2019 was the second-warmest year on record
2019 was the second-warmest year on record, ending a decade that topped 140 years of heat records.
- Space
A second planet may orbit Proxima Centauri
The star closest to the sun may harbor another planet, this one much more massive and colder than Earth.
- Life
The ‘Blob,’ a massive marine heat wave, led to an unprecedented seabird die-off
Scientists have linked thousands of dead common murres in 2015–2016 to food web changes caused by a long-lasting marine heat wave nicknamed the Blob.
- Anthropology
Neandertals dove and harvested clamshells for tools near Italy’s shores
The discovery of sharpened shells broadens the reputation of Stone Age human relatives: Neandertals weren’t just one-trick mammoth hunters.
- Neuroscience
A parasite that makes mice unafraid of cats may quash other fears too
The parasite Toxoplasma gondii can mess with all sorts of mice behaviors and make the rodents fearless in many situations.
- Microbes
Microbes slowed by one drug can rapidly develop resistance to another
Hunkering down in a dormant, tolerant state may make it easier for infectious bacteria to develop resistance to antibiotics.
- Space
This ancient stardust is the oldest ever to be examined in a lab
Tiny grains of stardust that formed long before our solar system are giving new insight into star formation in the Milky Way.
- Physics
The fastest-spinning object ever made could help spot quantum friction in a vacuum
Scientists have developed a torque sensor made with a nanoparticle that can spin more than 300 billion times a minute.
- Animals
Australian fires have incinerated the habitats of up to 100 threatened species
Hundreds of fires that are blazing across the continent’s southeast have created an unprecedented ecological disaster, scientists say.
- Earth
Wildfires could flip parts of the Amazon from a carbon sponge to a source by 2050
Climate change and deforestation could double the area burned by fire in the southern Amazon by 2050, flipping the forest from carbon sponge to source.
- Health & Medicine
What we know — and don’t know — about a new virus causing pneumonia in China
A newfound coronavirus is behind a mysterious outbreak of pneumonia in central China. Experts urge vigilance but say there’s no cause for panic.
