Video
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Space
These are the most detailed images of the sun ever taken
First images from the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope reveal details on the surface of the sun three times as small as ever seen.
- Life
How bacteria create flower art
Different types of microbes growing in lab dishes can push each other to make floral patterns.
- Chemistry
A dance of two atoms reveals chemical bonds forming and breaking
Two rhenium atoms approach and retreat from one another in an electron microscope video.
- Life
‘PigeonBot’ is the first robot that can bend its wings like a real bird
Insights into the joint movements and feather surface structures that help birds control their wing shape could help robotic flyers move more deftly.
- Life
Fluid dynamics may help drones capture a dolphin’s breath in midair
High-speed footage of dolphin spray reveals that droplets blast upward at speeds approaching 100 kilometers per hour.
- Life
Stick-toting puffins offer the first evidence of tool use in seabirds
Puffins join the ranks of tool-using birds after researchers document two birds using sticks to groom, a first for seabirds.
- Life
Koalas aren’t primates, but they move like monkeys in trees
With double thumbs and a monkey-sized body, an iconic marsupial climbs like a primate.
- Space
2019 brought us the first image of a black hole. A movie may be next
The Event Horizon Telescope team is gearing up for more black hole discoveries.
- Climate
See how an Alaskan glacier has shrunk over time
Scientists have created a time-lapse series of images of the retreat of an Alaskan glacier using NASA and U.S. Geological Survey Landsat data.
- Space
Realigning magnetic fields may drive the sun’s spiky plasma tendrils
Solar spicules emerge near counterpointing magnetic fields, hinting that self-adjusting magnetism creates these filaments, which may heat the corona.
- Animals
Flipping a molecular switch can turn warrior ants into foragers
Toggling one protein soon after hatching makes Florida carpenter ants turn from fighting to hunting for food.
- Animals
Silver-backed chevrotains have been ‘rediscovered’ by science after 29 years
With help from Vietnamese villagers, researchers captured photos of a species of deerlike ungulate thought lost to science nearly three decades ago.
