Laurel Hamers

Laurel Hamers was the general assignment reporter at Science News.

All Stories by Laurel Hamers

  1. Life

    Rattlesnakes have reduced their repertoire of venoms

    The most recent common ancestor of today’s rattlesnakes had a huge set of toxin-producing genes. Modern rattlesnake species have independently ditched some of these genes.

  2. Planetary Science

    Moon rocks may have misled asteroid bombardment dating

    Discrepancies in moon rock dating muddy Late Heavy Bombardment debate.

  3. Life

    Scientists watch as bacteria evolve antibiotic resistance

    A giant petri dish exposes the evolutionary dynamics behind antibiotic resistance.

  4. Humans

    Brain’s blood appetite grew faster than its size

    Over evolutionary time, the energy demands of hominid brains increased faster than their volume, a new study finds.

  5. Animals

    Dog brains divide language tasks much like humans do

    Dogs understand what we say separately from how we say it.

  6. Life

    Lyme bacteria swap ‘catch bonds’ to navigate blood vessels

    Lyme bacteria use same tricks as white blood cells to navigate blood stream.

  7. Quantum Physics

    Experiment confirms plan for quantum-coded messages

    A new way to send secret quantum messages uses shorter keys.

  8. Life

    ‘Promiscuous’ enzymes can compensate for disabled genes

    Promiscuous enzymes can step in when bacteria lose genes they need to function.

  9. Plants

    Sneaky virus helps plants multiply, creating more hosts

    Plant virus makes hosts more attractive to pollinators, ensuring future virus-susceptible plants.

  10. Plants

    Internal clock helps young sunflowers follow the sun

    A circadian clock helps sunflowers follow the sun’s daily path across the sky

  11. Paleontology

    Woolly mammoths’ last request: Got water?

    Woolly mammoths survived on an Alaskan island thousands of years after mainland mammoths went extinct. But they died out when their lakes dried up, thanks to a warming climate and rising sea levels.

  12. Life

    Distinctions blur between wolf species

    Red and eastern wolves might be gray wolf/coyote blends instead of distinct species