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A woman lifts weights, a type of friction worth keeping.

Science & Society

AI can take the friction out of life, but some effort can be good

Technologies, including chatbots, promise to make life easier. But removing the friction, or effort involved in thinking, has costs.

By Sujata Gupta29 minutes ago

A white rat with red eyes

Animals

Female rats like a different kind of tickling than males

By Hannah Thomasy2 hours ago

First evidence of Neandertal dentistry found in ancient molar

By Tom Metcalfe21 hours ago

A small white boat pulls away from the black hull of a ship on which the name Hondius is visible in white letters. Eight people in blue medical garb with white showercaps on their heads and wearing N95 masks sit in the back of the boat. A person in a full body white suit including a hood and N95 mask is standing at the front left bow while another person in full white protective gear is in the cabin. These are American citizens being evacuated from a cruise ship after an Andes hantavirus outbreak onboard.

Health & Medicine

Hantavirus questions grow in the wake of a cruise ship outbreak

By Tina Hesman Saey22 hours ago

Wiggly purple lines overlapping one another on a dark background

Physics

To get string theory, you need only four physics assumptions

By Emily Conover23 hours ago

An image of he Turkana Rift Zone in Africa, where Earth’s crust is pulling apart. The landscape is mostly brown and barren.

Earth

The crust under Africa is thinning in a way that hasn’t been seen before

By Katherine KorneiMay 13, 2026

Two adult snub-nosed monkeys sit together, with a juvenile between them and a bare winter landscape in the background.

Animals

Territorial conflict may explain male primates’ large size

By Jake BuehlerMay 12, 2026

We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

Spotlight on Health

A small cruise ship is shown from an aerial view in open water. This ship has had an outbreak of hantavirus.

What to know about a rare hantavirus outbreak at sea

Public health officials are racing to find out how the sometimes deadly hantavirus got aboard a cruise ship and if there has been human-to-human spread.

By Tina Hesman SaeyMay 5, 2026
Why some brain cells are particularly vulnerable to multiple sclerosis
Some South American rodent-borne viruses may spread as climate warms

Science News Magazine

May 2026 cover of Science News

May 1, 2026 Vol. 208 No. 5

From Science News Investors Lab

Featured Media

25 people learned to fly with virtual wings. Here’s how the brain changed

A new study shows learning to fly in virtual reality with virtual wings can reshape the brain, making it treat wings more like body parts.

An artist's reconstruction of a dinosaur with wings using them to hunt insects

If wings came before flight, what were they for?

Margaret Oluwatoyin Japhet talks to her lab members

A low-cost rotavirus test could save childrens’ lives in Nigeria

A collage of flowers on a blue background.

Celebrate America’s 250th birthday at a new state flower exhibit

A black-and-white ultrasound image of a baby in the womb.

Prenatal surgery for spina bifida may get a boost from stem cells

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More Stories

Life

Cows’ methane burps may be fueled by a newfound organelle in gut microbes

By Tina Hesman SaeyApril 30, 2026
Smithsonian secrets most likely to blow your mind

By Meghan Rosen and Stephen VossApril 14, 2026
Talking dogs and chatty cats could one day ‘speak’ in our language

By Laura SandersApril 13, 2026

Humans

Have a taste of our favorite food stories from 2025

By Carly KayDecember 24, 2025
‘Black Religion in the Madhouse’ examines psychiatry and race post-Civil War

By Aimee CunninghamDecember 12, 2025
Ancient southern Africans took genetic evolution in a new direction

By Bruce BowerDecember 3, 2025

Climate

Emperor penguins are marching toward extinction. Antarctica fur seals too

By Carolyn GramlingApril 9, 2026
City skylines influence cloud formation above them

By Larissa G. CapellaMarch 17, 2026
Extreme heat is cutting the time people can safely be active outdoors

By Nikk OgasaMarch 16, 2026

Astronomy

Astronomers may have found a record-breaking pair of black holes

By Mara Johnson-GrohMay 11, 2026
The earliest evidence of the first stars may lie in a distant gas clump

By Mara Johnson-GrohApril 24, 2026
Clouds of water ice thread stellar nurseries in the Milky Way

By Nikk OgasaApril 23, 2026

Physics

The secret to perfect espresso? It’s physics

By Taylor Mitchell BrownApril 24, 2026
A new measurement reveals gravity is still hard to pin down

By Mara Johnson-GrohApril 16, 2026
Water has a newfound ‘critical point’ that may help explain its quirks

By Emily ConoverMarch 26, 2026

Health & Medicine

Uterus transplants can provide a path to pregnancy and parenthood

By Aimee CunninghamMay 12, 2026
Do GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic prevent cancer?

By Meghan RosenMay 5, 2026
Peptides are unproven as health aids. FDA may unleash them anyway

By Jamie DucharmeMay 1, 2026

Earth

Seismic data captured the sound of awe during a solar eclipse

By Maria TemmingApril 29, 2026
Can ‘extinct’ volcanoes still erupt? A Greek peak holds surprising clues

By Skyler WareApril 28, 2026
Earth’s continental plates were moving 3.48 billion years ago

By Douglas FoxMarch 19, 2026

Science & Society

Know the legal age to buy tobacco products in the U.S.? Many parents don’t

By Aimee CunninghamApril 17, 2026
Snippets of hair may expose chronic stress in war refugees

By Sujata GuptaApril 6, 2026
Pronatalists want more babies. Their solutions aren’t rooted in science

By Sujata GuptaMarch 31, 2026