All Stories by Bethany Brookshire
- Tech
50 years ago, engineers tried catching commercial planes in nets
Fifty years ago, aviation experts tried helping commercial aircraft come to a stop during landing by catching them in massive nets. The idea crash-landed for commercial flights, but it’s still used in the military.
- Genetics
Two artificial sweeteners together take the bitter out of bittersweet
Some artificial sweeteners are well known for their bitter aftertastes. But saccharin and cyclamate are better together, and now scientists know why.
- Tech
50 years ago, West Germany embraced nuclear power
In 1967, Germany gave nuclear power a try. Today, the country is trading nukes for renewables.
- Animals
This sea snake looks like a banana and hunts like a Slinky
A newly identified sea snake subspecies is known to live in a single gulf off the Pacific coast of Costa Rica.
- Science & Society
On social media, privacy is no longer a personal choice
Data from the now-defunct social platform Friendster show that even people not on social media have predictable qualities.
- Health & Medicine
50 years ago, antibiotic resistance alarms went unheeded
Scientists have worried about antibiotic resistance for decades.
- Health & Medicine
Researchers stumble onto a new role for breast cancer drug
At first, ophthalmologist Xu Wang thought her experiment had failed. But instead, she revealed a new role for the breast cancer drug tamoxifen — protection from eye injury.
- Psychology
Running is contagious among those with the competitive bug
Can behaviors really be contagious? Runners log more miles when their friends do — especially if they want to stay leader of the pack, a new study finds.
- Archaeology
How the house mouse tamed itself
When people began to settle down, animals followed. Some made successful auditions as our domesticated species. Others — like mice — became our vermin, a new study shows.
- Science & Society
Most Americans like science — and are willing to pay for it
Americans drastically overestimate how much the government spends on science. But when correctly informed, they want the government to spend more.
- Science & Society
Scientists may work to prevent bias, but they don’t always say so
Scientists may do the work to prevent bias in their experiments — but they aren’t telling other scientists about it, two new studies show.
- Computing
Speech recognition has come a long way in 50 years
Early versions of computer speech recognition relied on word sounds. Now, they add pattern recognition and a lot of statistics.
