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Earth

Whirlwinds of crystals called gravel devils spotted in Andes Mountains

Large whirlwinds in northern Chile can carry gravel-sized gypsum crystals several kilometers before dumping them in mounds.

Life

Tiny toxic proteins help gut bacteria defeat rivals

A strain of E. coli makes competition-killing tiny proteins and soothes inflamed intestines.

Materials Science

Superflexible, 3-D printed “bones” trigger new growth

New ultraflexible material could be the future of bone repair, but awaits human testing.

Health & Medicine

Clean inside those bagpipes — and trumpets and clarinets

Bagpipes’ moist interiors may be the perfect breeding ground for yeasts and molds.

Physics

Flaming fuel on water creates ‘blue whirl’ that burns clean

Scientists found a way to burn fuel on water that leaves little soot behind.

Planetary Science

Earth has a tiny tagalong, and no, it’s not a moon

Asteroid 2016 HO3 is a quasisatellite of Earth — orbiting the sun while never wandering far from our planet.

Oceans

The Arctic Ocean is about to get spicier

Variations in the saltiness and temperature of seawater of the same density, called spiciness, could increase as the Arctic Ocean warms.

Environment

Dome effect leaves Chinese megacities under thick haze

Airborne black carbon lowers an atmospheric boundary, trapping pollution around major cities and worsening air quality, researchers propose.

Astronomy

Black hole smashup generated yottawatts of power

For a split second, LIGO’s black hole collision generated 36 septillion yottawatts of power, or 50 times the power from all the stars in the universe.

Astronomy

Clues left at a galactic hit-and-run

Scientists may have discovered a dwarf galaxy that triggered a “galaxy quake” when it buzzed by the Milky Way a few hundred million years ago.

Astronomy

Super-Earths, meet superpuffs, a lighter weight class of planet

Superpuffs are underweight, oversized planets that formed in outskirts of star systems before cuddling up close to their sun.

Animals

For a female mosquito, the wrong guy can mean no babies

Male Asian tiger mosquitoes leave female yellow fever mosquitoes uninterested in mating with their own species, a process known as “satyrization.”