Deleted Scenes
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Earth
Hazy antidote to a faint young sun
A new theory suggests atmospheric answer to the continuing paradox of why early Earth wasn’t icy.
- Space
Snapshots from a world off-kilter
Astronomers at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Miami presented images of exoplanets in high-angle orbits.
-
A dark debate
Physicists are embroiled in a verbal slugfest over a few measly WIMPs. WIMPs, or weakly interacting massive particles, are hypothetical subatomic particles that, if shown to exist, might account for some of the invisible dark matter that astronomers say makes up some 85 percent of the mass of the universe. Astronomers are eager to find […]
-
Bees had a bad winter, too
Annual survey shows times are still tough.
- Life
One ocean, four (or more) killer whale species
Killer whales may be at least four species, a new study of mitochondrial DNA shows.
- Earth
Wringing hope from crashing biodiversity
Biodiversity losses have not slowed despite a treaty designed to protect variety in the natural world.
- Ecosystems
Forests on the wane
Early last decade, the world’s tree coverage dropped by more than 3 percent.
- Physics
The backstory behind a new element
Science News contributing editor Alexandra Witze describes what it took to synthesize ununseptium, element number 117.
- Humans
Water, water everywhere
Sid Perkins uncovers the amazing amount of “hidden water” in many consumer products.
- Health & Medicine
Junk food junkies, round two
Laura Sanders follows up on a story first reported from the Society for Neuroscience’s 2009 meeting.
- Health & Medicine
One of H1N1’s mysteries explained
The current H1N1 influenza shares many similarities with the 1918 pandemic influenza.
- Space
Spirit: ‘The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated’
The Mars rover makes a small, but promising, move.
