Science & Society
The board game Endangered shows just how hard conservation can be
The new board game Endangered shows how working together is the only way for conservation to succeed.
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Cover Story
Five big questions about when and how to open schools amid COVID-19
Researchers weigh in on how to get children back into classrooms in a low-risk way.
Reviews & Previews
Science Visualized
Animals
How some superblack fish disappear into the darkness of the deep sea
Some fish that live in the ocean’s depths are superblack as a result of a special layer of light-absorbing structures in the skin.
Notebook
Space
To rehearse Perseverance’s mission, scientists pretended to be a Mars rover
Seven Mars scientists pretended to be the Mars Perseverance rover on a training exercise in the Nevada desert.
Features
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Improved three-week weather forecasts could save lives from disaster
Meteorologists are pushing to make forecasts good enough to fill the gap between short-term and seasonal.
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Puberty can repair the brain’s stress responses after hardship early in life
Puberty may erase the shadow of trauma for children who had a difficult start.
More Stories from the August 29, 2020 issue
- Animals
A South American mouse is the world’s highest-dwelling mammal
At 6,739 meters above sea level, the yellow-rumped leaf-eared mouse survives low oxygen and freezing conditions atop a dormant volcano.
- Astronomy
This is the first picture of a sunlike star with multiple exoplanets
A first family portrait reveals a weird cousin of the solar system: a star about the mass of the sun orbited — distantly — by two massive gas giants.
- Health & Medicine
Many U.S. neighborhoods with the worst air 40 years ago remain the most polluted
Air pollution has declined in the United States, but marginalized communities are still disproportionately affected despite the improvement.
- Health & Medicine
Rogue immune system reactions hint at an early treatment for COVID-19
A comprehensive look at the immune system shows multiple ways it misfires in COVID-19. Treating with interferon early might prevent trouble later.
- Animals
An immune system quirk may help anglerfish fuse with mates during sex
Deep-sea anglerfish that fuse to mate lack genes involved in the body’s response against pathogens or foreign tissue.
- Animals
How tuatara live so long and can withstand cool weather
Tuatara may look like your average lizard, but they’re not. Now, researchers have deciphered the rare reptiles’ genome, or genetic instruction book.
- Space
Paradoxically, white dwarf stars shrink as they gain mass
Observations of thousands of white dwarf stars have confirmed a decades-old theory about the relationship between their masses and sizes.
- Physics
The physics of solar flares could help scientists predict imminent outbursts
Physicists aim to improve space weather predictions by studying the physical processes that spark a solar flare.
- Physics
A black hole circling a wormhole would emit weird gravitational waves
A new calculation reveals the strange gravitational waves LIGO and Virgo could see if a black hole were falling into a hypothetical tunnel in spacetime.
- Space
An Antarctic ice dome may offer the world’s clearest views of the night sky
The highest point in East Antarctica could be an ideal place for an optical telescope, a new study finds.
- Archaeology
Ancient DNA suggests Vikings may have been plagued by smallpox
Viral genetic material from human remains provides direct evidence that smallpox infected people dating back to the year 603.
- Archaeology
A submerged Inca offering hints at Lake Titicaca’s sacred role
Divers found a stone box holding a figurine and a gold item, highlighting Lake Titicaca’s sacred status to the Inca.
- Animals
Some spiders may spin poisonous webs laced with neurotoxins
The sticky silk threads of spider webs may be hiding a toxic secret: potent neurotoxins that paralyze a spider’s prey.
- Life
Water beetles can live on after being eaten and excreted by a frog
After being eaten by a frog, some water beetles can scurry through the digestive tract and emerge on the other side, alive and well.
- Oceans
These ancient seafloor microbes woke up after over 100 million years
Scientists discover that microbes that had lain dormant in the seafloor for millions of years can revive and multiply.
- Animals
Penguin poop spotted from space ups the tally of emperor penguin colonies
High-res satellite images reveal eight new breeding sites for the world’s largest penguins on Antarctica, including the first reported ones offshore.
- Space
‘Exotic’ lightning crackles across Jupiter’s cloud tops
Newly spotted lightning, which could form thanks to ammonia antifreeze, is weaker but more frequent than any flashes seen on Jupiter before.
- Cosmology
Scientists can’t agree on how clumpy the universe is
A measurement of 21 million galaxies finds a level of clumpiness that disagrees with estimates based on the oldest light in the universe.
- Sponsored Content
Conversations with Maya: Ray Kurzweil
Maya Ajmera, President & CEO of Society for Science & the Public and Publisher of Science News, chatted with Ray Kurzweil, an alumnus of the Science Talent Search and a renowned inventor and futurist.
- Health & Medicine
50 years ago, scientists were trying to develop a low-emission car
Electric cars have surged in popularity, but the vehicles still contribute to greenhouse gas emissions.
