520 results
- Science & Society
Logarithms celebrate their 400th birthday
Four centuries ago, John Napier provided human calculators the time-saving gift of logarithms.
- Animals
There’s plenty of bling in the natural world
Beetles that look like solid gold are just the start to jewel-like and metallic looks in nature.
- Animals
Slow, cold reptiles may breathe like energetic birds
Finding birdlike air patterns in lungs of crocodilians and in more distantly related lizards raises the possibility that one-way airflow evolved far earlier than birds themselves did.
- Animals
Peacocks sometimes fake mating hoots
Peacocks may have learned a benefit of deception by sounding their copulation calls even when no peahens are in sight.
- Animals
Elephants can tell men’s voices from women’s
Amboseli elephants may pick out age and gender — and even distinguish between languages — when listening to human voices.
- Humans
Clovis baby’s genome unveils Native American ancestry
DNA from skeleton shows all tribes come from a single population.
- Science & Society
Feedback
Readers respond to our stories 'Distracted Driving' and 'Ratio of a good life exposed as ‘nonsense’'
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- Animals
Birds know road speed limits
Crows, house sparrows and other species judge when to flee the asphalt by average traffic rates rather than an oncoming car's speed.
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Gifts of the Crow: How Perception, Emotion, and Thought Allow Smart Birds to Behave Like Humans by John Marzluff and Tony Angell
Tales of crows’ amazing feats are complemented by original artwork in this look at the birds’ intelligence. Free Press, 2012, 289 p., $25
- Earth
The long and winding Colorado
The history of the West’s iconic river is written in the dramatic landscapes it has shaped. How to interpret that chronicle has become a contentious issue among geologists.
- Life
As Brood II emerges, questions remain about cicada cycles
The how and why of years lived underground are among the unsolved mysteries about the loud, obvious insects.
