News
- Climate
Organic molecules help fatten cloud-making water droplets
Cloud-forming water droplets can grow larger thanks to organic molecules on the exterior of the drop, new research suggests.
- Genetics
Scientists build minimum-genome bacterium
Minimal genome organism reveals how much scientists don’t know about biology.
- Animals
It’s an herbivore-kill-herbivore world
Female prairie dogs killing babies of another species might keep competitors off the grass.
By Susan Milius - Neuroscience
Brain holds more than one road to fear
A study on rare patients suggests that fear can take many paths through the brain.
- Animals
Female burying beetle uses chemical cue to douse love life
While raising their young, burying beetle mothers produce a chemical compound that limits their male partner’s desire to mate.
- Earth
CO2 shakes up theory of how geysers spout
Carbon dioxide helps fuel eruptions of Spouter Geyser, and perhaps other features, in Yellowstone National Park, new research suggests.
- Planetary Science
Comets carried noble gases to Earth
Asteroids might have delivered water to Earth, but comets could be responsible for noble gases and amino acids, a new study suggests.
- Math
Mathematicians find a peculiar pattern in primes
Consecutive prime numbers don’t behave as randomly as mathematicians assumed.
- Humans
Pacific islanders got a double whammy of Stone Age DNA
Neandertal and Denisovan genes influence the health of present-day Melanesians.
By Bruce Bower - Neuroscience
Lost memories retrieved for mice with signs of Alzheimer’s
Using light, scientists coaxed a forgotten memory from the brains of mice with Alzheimer’s-like symptoms.
- Materials Science
Playing with building blocks for metamaterial design
Legos show promise as a low-cost method to assist scientists in developing novel metamaterials.
- Ecosystems
Australian fairy circles first to be found outside Africa
Strange patterns of grassland bald spots called fairy circles show up in Western Australia.
By Susan Milius