News
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How Ötzi the Iceman really got his tattoos
Modern tattooing experiments challenge a popular idea about how the roughly 5,200-year-old mummified man got marked with dark lines.
- Chemistry
Protein whisperer Oluwatoyin Asojo fights neglected diseases
Oluwatoyin Asojo’s work on hookworm protein structures have contributed to a vaccine being tested in people.
- Cosmology
The largest 3-D map of the universe reveals hints of dark energy’s secrets
A year of data from DESI, the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument, suggests that, contrary to expectations, dark energy might vary over time.
- Physics
Physicists take a major step toward making a nuclear clock
By tweaking the energy of a thorium nucleus with a laser, scientists demonstrated a key step to building clocks based on the physics of atomic nuclei.
- Astronomy
How a 19th century astronomer can help you watch the total solar eclipse
Astronomer Maria Mitchell’s observations of total solar eclipses from more than 100 years ago hold tips that are still relevant for watching an eclipse.
- Health & Medicine
Bird flu has infected a person after spreading to cows. Here’s what to know
H5N1 has wreaked havoc on birds around the globe and occasionally made the jump to mammals, including cows. The risk to people remains low.
- Health & Medicine
A new study has linked microplastics to heart attacks and strokes. Here’s what we know
Patients with microplastics in their arteries were 4.5 times more likely to have a heart attack, stroke or die within the next three years.
- Life
During a total solar eclipse, some colors really pop. Here’s why
As a solar eclipse approaches totality and our eyes adjust to dimming light, our color vision changes. It’s called the Purkinje effect.
- Genetics
Here’s why some pigeons do backflips
Meet the scientist homing in on the genes involved in making parlor roller pigeons do backward somersaults.
- Neuroscience
Chickadees use memory ‘bar codes’ to find their hidden food stashes
Unique subsets of neurons in a chickadee’s memory center light up for each distinct cache, hinting at how episodic memories are encoded in the brain.
- Neuroscience
Here’s how magnetic fields shape desert ants’ brains
Exposure to a tweaked magnetic field scrambled desert ants’ efforts to learn where home is — and affected neuron connections in a key part of the brain.
- Earth
Earth’s oldest known earthquake was probably triggered by plate tectonics
Billion-year-old rocks in South Africa hold evidence for the onset of plate tectonics early in Earth’s history.
