Vol. 204 No. 2
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August 12, 2023 cover

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More Stories from the August 12, 2023 issue

  1. A photo of a busy street with people walking around and cars on the road. Heat haze can be seen on the road.
    Climate

    July 2023 nailed an unfortunate world record: hottest month ever recorded

    Roughly 6.5 billion people, or 4 out of 5 humans, felt the touch of climate change via hotter temperatures during July.

    By
  2. A photo of a hominid leg fossil on a black background with a magnified view of it on the right shows a variety of scratches and gouges.
    Anthropology

    Fossil marks suggest hominids butchered one another around 1.45 million years ago

    Researchers disagree whether new evidence of stone tool marks on a hominid leg bone reflects ancient cannibalism or perhaps some other, undetected behavior.

    By
  3. photo of a vacuum chamber
    Physics

    Electrons are extremely round, a new measurement confirms

    The near-perfect roundness deepens the mystery behind how the universe came to be filled with matter as opposed to antimatter.

    By
  4. An illustration of a pulsar.
    Astronomy

    A newfound gravitational wave ‘hum’ may be from the universe’s biggest black holes

    Scientists reported evidence for a new class of gravitational waves, likely created by merging supermassive black holes.

    By
  5. A photo of the IceCube neutrino detector in Antarctica with a view of the Milky Way and aurora australis lights.
    Physics

    Neutrinos offer a new view of the Milky Way

    Physicists turned to AI to help map out the newfound origins of ghostly neutrino particles coming from deep in the Milky Way.

    By
  6. A photo of a sample of the asteroid Ryugu, small black rocks, in a small circular dish.
    Astronomy

    Ryugu asteroid samples are sprinkled with stardust older than the solar system

    Slivers of the asteroid appear to be from the fringes of the solar system and could reveal bits of the history of the sun and its planets.

    By
  7. photo of a bottlenose dolphin mom and calf
    Animals

    Bottlenose dolphin moms use baby talk with their calves

    When their babies are near, bottlenose dolphin moms modify their signature whistles, similar to human parents speaking in baby talk.

    By
  8. A 3-D rendering of a coronavirus detector.
    Health & Medicine

    A new device can detect the coronavirus in the air in minutes

    The detector can sense as a few as seven to 35 coronavirus particles per liter of air — about as sensitive as a PCR test but much quicker.

    By
  9. A photo of Crawford Lake with trees surrounding it.
    Climate

    Canada’s Crawford Lake could mark the beginning of the Anthropocene

    The mud of a Canadian lake holds an extremely precise record of humans’ influence on Earth. But the Anthropocene isn’t an official geologic epoch yet.

    By
  10. A photo of a young American chestnut tree growing in a large field.
    Health & Medicine

    ‘Blight’ warns that a future pandemic could start with a fungus

    ‘The Last of Us’ is fiction, but the health dangers posed by fungi are real, a new book explains.

    By
  11. A selection of tektites
    Earth

    50 years ago, mysterious glass hinted at Earth’s violent past

    Like Hansel and Gretel followed a trail of breadcrumbs, scientists have followed tektites to the sites of major meteorite impacts.

    By
  12. An image of cosmic clouds glowing in X-rays.
    Astronomy

    200 years ago, the Milky Way’s central black hole briefly awoke

    The black hole is thought to be mostly quiet and dim. Now, glowing cosmic clouds have revealed the behemoth’s last flare.

    By
  13. A close up photo of a car's tire while it drives on a black top road.
    Chemistry

    Tear-resistant rubbery materials could pave the way for tougher tires

    Adding easy-to-break molecular connectors surprisingly makes materials harder to tear and could one day reduce microplastic pollution from car tires.

    By
  14. An illustration of an Anomalocaris canadensis underwater.
    Paleontology

    This ancient, Lovecraftian apex predator chased and pierced soft prey

    Half a billion years ago, Anomalocaris canadensis probably used its bizarre headgear to reach out and snag soft prey with its spiky clutches.

    By
  15. A selection of tektites
    Earth

    50 years ago, mysterious glass hinted at Earth’s violent past

    Like Hansel and Gretel followed a trail of breadcrumbs, scientists have followed tektites to the sites of major meteorite impacts.

    By