News
- Earth
Bubblin’ plume
Sonar survey spots previously unknown plume in the depths off California.
By Sid Perkins - Earth
Rapid evolution may be reshaping forest birds’ wings
Logging during the last century might have driven birds in mature boreal forests toward pointier wings while reforestation in New England led to rounder wings.
By Susan Milius - Earth
Hazy changes on high
A big boost in coal burning, especially in China, is adding aerosols to the stratosphere.
By Sid Perkins - Tech
Isotope crisis threatens medical care
Global production of the feedstock for the leading medical-imaging isotope is low and erratic, putting health care in jeopardy.
By Janet Raloff - Physics
Casper the Quantum Ghost
Researchers find that a strange kind of imaging relies on quantum mechanics.
- Archaeology
Fire engineers of the Stone Age
New evidence indicates that people used fires to heat stones in preparation for making cutting instruments at least 72,000 years ago in southern Africa.
By Bruce Bower - Life
A gene for a short night’s sleep
Alterations in a gene called DEC2 lead to a shortened sleep period in people, mice and fruit flies.
- Tech
Scientists propose lab-grade black holes
Creating tiny, artificial black holes could help uncover what happens to particles on the edge of full-sized black holes.
- Health & Medicine
Brain doesn’t sort by visual cues alone
Blind and sighted people’s brains sort the living from the nonliving in the same way, suggesting this ability may be hard-wired.
- Earth
Big Gulp, Asian style
Satellite data reveals that increased irrigation pressure is rapidly depleting groundwater in northern India.
By Sid Perkins - Animals
SOS: Call the ants
Emergency ant workers bite at snares, dig and tug to free trapped sisters
By Susan Milius - Life
Vegetarian spider
The first known spider with a predominantly meatless diet nibbles trees.
By Susan Milius