Science & Society
A new Galileo biography draws parallels to today’s science denialism
‘Galileo and the Science Deniers’ delivers a fresh assessment of the life of a scientific legend and offers lessons for today.
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Cover Story
COVID-19 case clusters offer lessons and warnings for reopening
As restaurants, offices and other businesses open, trends in where and how COVID-19 transmission is happening could help guide re-entry strategies.
Reviews & Previews
Science Visualized
Space
This is the most comprehensive X-ray map of the sky ever made
A new X-ray map of the entire sky, using data from the eROSITA telescope’s first full scan, looks deeper into space than any other of its kind.
Notebook
Animals
How Yellowstone wolves got their own Ancestry.com page
Since the wolves’ reintroduction to the park, 25 years of devoted watching has chronicled bold moves, big fights and lots of puppies.
Features
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Why do we miss the rituals put on hold by the COVID-19 pandemic?
Even solitary rituals bind us to our groups and help calm anxieties. What happens when those traditions are upended?
More Stories from the August 15, 2020 issue
- Animals
Calculating a dog’s age in human years is harder than you think
People generally convert a dog’s age to human years by multiplying its age by seven. But a new study shows the math is way more complex.
- Genetics
A bacterial toxin enables the first mitochondrial gene editor
Researchers have engineered a protein from bacteria that kills other microbes to change DNA in a previously inaccessible part of the cell.
- Planetary Science
An asteroid’s moon got a name so NASA can bump it off its course
A tiny moon orbiting an asteroid finally got a name because NASA plans to crash a spacecraft into it.
- Humans
Competitive hot dog eaters may be nearing humans’ max eating speed
Just how many hot dogs can one human eat in 10 minutes? New research suggests the answer is 83.
- Astronomy
The closest images of the sun ever taken reveal ‘campfire’ flares
The first images from Solar Orbiter, a NASA-European Space Agency spacecraft, show tiny, never-before-seen flares across the sun’s surface.
- Earth
Agriculture and fossil fuels are driving record-high methane emissions
Releases of the heat-trapping gas methane from human activities have ramped up in the 21st century, especially in Africa and Asia.
- Physics
The universe might have a fundamental clock that ticks very, very fast
A theoretical study could help physicists searching for a theory of quantum gravity.
- Paleontology
This dinosaur may have shed its feathers like modern songbirds
One of the earliest flying dinosaurs, the four-winged Microraptor, may have molted just a bit at a time so that it could fly year-round.
- Physics
Physicists have ‘braided’ strange quasiparticles called anyons
All known particles fall into two classes. Physicists just found new evidence of a third class in 2-D materials.
- Health & Medicine
A blood test may show which COVID-19 patients steroids will help — or harm
An inflammation marker was a good indicator of which patients had lower or higher risks of dying or needing a ventilator when given steroids.
- Climate
Climate change made Siberia’s heat wave at least 600 times more likely
Siberia’s six-month heat wave during the first half of 2020 would not have happened without human-caused climate change, researchers find.
- Physics
A giant underground motion sensor in Germany tracks Earth’s wobbles
A giant underground gyroscope array has taken its first measurements of how the world goes ’round.
- Paleontology
An ancient skull hints crocodiles swam from Africa to the Americas
A group of crocs, or at least one pregnant female, may have made a transatlantic journey millions of years ago to colonize new land.
- Earth
50 years ago, scientists clocked the speed of Antarctic ice
Today’s instruments offer a more precise view, and reveal the effects of climate change.
