News
- Chemistry
Lotions and perfumes affect the air near our skin
The personal care products suppress reactions between skin oils and ozone. It's not clear how, or if, this chemistry change might impact human health.
- Animals
How luna moths grow extravagant wings
Warm temperatures, not just predator pressure, may favor luna moths’ long bat-fooling streamers, a geographic analysis of iNaturalist pics shows.
- Planetary Science
Venus’ tectonics may be actively reshaping its surface
Circular landforms speckling the Venusian surface may be the work of tectonic activity.
- Anthropology
Males of this ancient human cousin weren’t always bigger than females
Molecular evidence from a 2-million-year-old southern African hominid species indicates sex and genetic differences in P. robustus.
- Science & Society
Students’ mental health imperiled by $1 billion cuts to school funding
The Trump administration is cutting $1 billion in grants that support student mental health. That has educators worried.
- Animals
Genetics might save the rare, elusive saola — if it’s not already extinct
A new genetic study could help saolas survive by enabling better searches through environmental DNA. But some experts fear they may be extinct already.
- Space
A passing star could fling Earth out of orbit
Simulations show that the star's tug could send Mercury, Venus or Mars crashing into Earth — or let Jupiter eject our world from the solar system.
- Health & Medicine
Personalized gene editing saved a baby, but the tech’s future is uncertain
The personalized CRISPR treatment could be the future of gene therapy, but hurdles remain before everyone has access.
- Neuroscience
‘Silent’ cells play a surprising role in how brains work
New studies show that astrocytes, long thought to be support cells in the brain, are crucial intermediaries for relaying messages to neurons.
- Animals
Bedbugs may have been one of the first urban pests
Common bedbugs experienced a dramatic jump in population size about 13,000 years ago, around the time humans congregated in the first cities.
- Anthropology
Humans used whale bones to make tools 20,000 years ago
Ancient scavengers of the beached beasts turned their bones into implements that spread across a large area, researchers say.
- Life
The first cicada concert was 47 million years ago
A 47-million-year-old cicada fossil from Germany’s Messel Pit could teach us about the evolution of insect communication.
