1,372 results
- Science & Society
Here are the Top 10 threats to the survival of civilization
These aren’t just movie scenarios. From aliens and asteroids to pandemics, war and climate change, civilization as we know it is at risk.
- Ecosystems
Biocrusts reduce global dust emissions by 60 percent
Lichens and other microbes construct biological soil crusts that concentrate nutrients and slash global dust emissions.
- Life
Africa’s fynbos plants hold their ground with the world’s thinnest roots
Long, thin roots help this South African shrubland commandeer soil nutrients and keep the neighboring forest from encroaching on its territory.
- Microbes
Drug-resistant bacteria evolved on hedgehogs long before the use of antibiotics
A standoff between bacteria and antibiotic-producing fungi living on hedgehogs may have led to the rise of one type of MRSA some 200 years ago.
- Animals
Cicada science heats up when Brood X emerges. 2021 was no exception
Mating mobs of big, hapless, 17-year-old cicadas made for a memorable spring in the Eastern United States
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Debate over Pluto’s planet status still carries on
Managing editor Erin Wayman discusses the challenges of classification in science, from Pluto's planet status to the definition of life.
- Agriculture
Nanoscale nutrients can protect plants from fungal diseases
Applied to the shoots, nutrients served in tiny metallic packages are absorbed more efficiently, strengthening plants’ defenses against fungal attack.
- Ecosystems
Wildfires launch microbes into the air. How big of a health risk is that?
How does wildfire smoke move bacteria and fungi — and what harm might they do to people when they get there?
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Epidemics and their aftermath
A century’s worth of science has helped us fend off infectious pathogens. But we have a lot to learn from the people who lived and died during epidemics.
- Health & Medicine
How COVID-19 created a perfect storm for a deadly fungal infection in India
Amid the chaos of the COVID-19 pandemic, numbers of rare but dangerous “black fungus” infections have skyrocketed in the country.
- Science & Society
An ecologist’s new book gets at the root of trees’ social lives
In ‘Finding the Mother Tree,’ Suzanne Simard recounts how she discovered hidden networks in forests.
