Space
An astrophysicist honors citizen scientists in the age of big data
In ‘The Crowd and the Cosmos,’ an astrophysicist gives due to citizen scientists and says they will continue to have a future in discovery.
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Cover Story
Stem cell clinics’ much-hyped treatments lack scientific support
Stem cell treatments for knee pain are strong on marketing, weak on science.
Reviews & Previews
Science Visualized
Life
How bacteria create flower art
Different types of microbes growing in lab dishes can push each other to make floral patterns.
Notebook
Math
Color-changing fibers help reveal mysteries of how knots work
Experiments with colorful fibers helped scientists discover a few simple rules behind knots’ varying strengths.
Features
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How one woman became the exception to her family’s Alzheimer’s history
A single mutation in a woman who evaded Alzheimer’s may point to new ways to treat the disease.
More Stories from the February 1, 2020 issue
- Life
A ‘bonanza’ of new bird species was found on remote Indonesian islands
Bird discoveries typically come in a trickle. But in a remote corner of Southeast Asia, 10 newly described songbird species and subspecies were found.
- Earth
Here’s how climate change may make Australia’s wildfires more common
An El Niño–like ocean-atmosphere weather pattern called the Indian Ocean dipole helped fuel extremely dry conditions in Australia.
- Health & Medicine
Healthy babies exposed to Zika in the womb may suffer developmental delays
A small group of Zika-exposed children in Colombia who were born healthy missed milestones for movement and social interaction by 18 months of age.
- Space
The home galaxy of a second repeating fast radio burst is a puzzle
The second galaxy known to host brief, brilliant flashes of radio waves known as a recurrent fast radio burst looks nothing like the first.
- Space
A giant wave of gas lurks near our solar system
The Earth and sun are relatively near a newfound, wavy rope of star-forming gas, named the Radcliffe Wave.
- Astronomy
LIGO detects its second neutron star collision, but gains few clues
Gravitational waves have once again heralded a smashup between neutron stars, but this time with no flash of light to help guide understanding.
- Space
Bubble-blowing galaxies could help solve a cosmic mystery
Three galaxies ionizing hydrogen 680 million years after the Big Bang show a potential step in the ionization of nearly all hydrogen in the cosmos.
- Health & Medicine
Injecting a TB vaccine into the blood, not the skin, boosts its effectiveness
Giving a high dose of a tuberculosis vaccine intravenously, instead of under the skin, improved its ability to protect against the disease in monkeys.
- Earth
Climate change is bringing earlier springs, which may trigger drier summers
An earlier than normal start to spring foliage is associated with drier soils come summer across much, but not all, of the Northern Hemisphere.
- Humans
Homo erectus arrived in Indonesia 300,000 years later than previously thought
The extinct, humanlike hominid likely reached the island of Java by around 1.3 million years ago, a study finds.
- Paleontology
Small ‘cousins’ of T. rex may actually have been growing teenagers
Fossil analyses suggest that Nanotyrannus wasn’t a diminutive relative of the more famous behemoth Tyrannosaurus rex.
- Life
Ocean acidification may not make fish act weird after all
A new study casts doubt on the results of early work into the effects of ocean acidification on coral reef fish behavior.
- Health & Medicine
Global progress in combating child malnutrition masks problem spots
Low-resource countries are tackling serious childhood malnutrition, national-level statistics show, but a closer look highlights disparities.
- Life
Russian foxes bred for tameness may not be the domestication story we thought
Foxes bred for tameness also developed floppy ears and curly tails, known as “domestication syndrome.” But what if the story isn’t what it seems?
- Health & Medicine
50 years ago, scientists debated the necessity of a smallpox vaccine
In 1970, scientists debated the necessity of routine smallpox vaccinations as the disease declined. Fifty years later, the debate continues.
- Health & Medicine
A bioethicist says scientists owe clinical trial volunteers support
Researchers should be aware that many insurance policies do not cover experimental procedures, including side effects that may happen afterward.
- Life
Stick-toting puffins offer the first evidence of tool use in seabirds
Puffins join the ranks of tool-using birds after researchers document two birds using sticks to groom, a first for seabirds.
- Space
The first glimpses of a pulsar’s surface hint at complex magnetism
Maps of a rapidly spinning neutron star could eventually help researchers figure out how matter behaves at extraordinarily high densities.
