News
- Planetary Science
Meteor explosions like this year’s Russian fireball more common than thought
Chelyabinsk-sized rocks may come to Earth every 30 years, on average.
By Andrew Grant - Life
Newborns’ weak immunity may allow helpful bacteria to gain a foothold
Though infant immune systems raise risk of infection, they also allow good microbes into the body, study in mice shows.
By Nathan Seppa - Neuroscience
Autism may be detectable in baby’s first months of life
Infants later diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder lose tendency to gaze at others’ eyes during first half-year, researchers find.
- Astronomy
Billions and billions of Earth-sized planets call Milky Way home
Using Kepler data, astronomers estimate that a sizeable fraction of the galaxy’s sunlike stars have Earth-sized planets that could support liquid water.
By Andrew Grant - Earth
Greenhouse gas injections may unleash earthquakes
Plans to pump carbon dioxide into the ground to mitigate climate change could create other problems.
By Beth Mole - Neuroscience
Brain enables sight without light
Sensory cross talk may underlie ability to see one’s own hand moving when it’s pitch black.
By Bruce Bower - Astronomy
Astronomers explain planets’ backward motion
Giant planets in distant orbits may be reversing the direction of their closer-in neighbors.
By Andrew Grant - Life
Steroids boost muscles for the long haul
Experiments in mice suggest that effects don’t end when doping does.
- Cosmology
Dark energy search gets murkier
Supernova measurements muddle scientists’ efforts to explain universe’s accelerating expansion.
- Health & Medicine
Exercise seems to limit bad falls in elderly
Regular exercise might limit broken bones due to bad falls in elderly people.
By Nathan Seppa - Life
Morel mushroom may grow crop of its own
A fungus could be a farmer itself, sowing, cultivating and harvesting bacteria.
By Susan Milius - Cosmology
Candidates for dark matter particles bite the dust
Most sensitive experiment yet determines that earlier findings were just artifacts.
By Andrew Grant