All Stories by Jenny Lauren Lee
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Better living through plasmonics
A well-polished mirror reflects the world faithfully back to the viewer’s eyes. But break that mirror into billions of nanosized chunks and each tiny silver sliver would not reflect the world with such fidelity. Instead of bouncing back to the viewer, the light would be sucked into the surface of the nanochunk like a genie […]
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Humans
A head for numbers
The brain shows slightly different, but overlapping patterns when processing digits and dots of the same value.
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Paleontology
Tiny T. rex-like tyrants
Fossils of new species suggest peculiar features weren’t limited to the biggest dinosaurs
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Broken Symmetry
On the outside, people’s right and left sides look pretty much the same. On the inside, though, such superficial symmetry gives way to an imbalanced array of organs: The heart, spleen and stomach sit on the left side of the body, while the liver and pancreas take up the right. Even organs that at first […]
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Life
One coral alga explodes with temperature increase
A rare species of coral algae exploded in population when ocean temperatures increased, a new study shows.
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Chemistry
Blue halos of doom
Under ultraviolet light, rings around the brown spots in aging bananas may signal the transition from ripe to rotten, researchers say.
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Animals
Play that monkey music
Man-made music inspired by tamarin calls seems to alter the primates’ emotions, a new study suggests.
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Humans
New genes give gut bacteria antibiotic resistance
Scientists find new genes for antibiotic resistance in common bacteria in the human gut.
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Chemistry
Leptin leads to hamster baby boom
High levels of leptin may tell mother hamsters to invest in larger litters, a new study suggests.
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Life
Excess folic acid sits idle
Humans metabolize folic acid at a slow rate, suggesting that additional folic acid may yield no more benefits than recommended doses do, researchers report.
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Humans
Nostril rivalry
Like the eyes and ears, each nostril vies for the brain’s attention, a new study suggests.
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What do you see?
You are hiking in the mountains when, out of the corner of your eye, you see something suspiciously snakelike. You freeze and look more carefully, this time identifying the source of your terror: a stick.Yet you could have sworn it was a snake.The brain may play tricks, but in this case it was actually doing […]