Climate
These 6 books explore climate change science and solutions
Science News staff read recent books about climate change to help guide you to which ones you might like.
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Cover Story
What data do cities like Orlando need to prepare for climate migrants?
As researchers wrestle with how to anticipate future population shifts due to climate change, possible “destination cities,” like Orlando, Fla., prepare for an influx.
Reviews & Previews
Science Visualized
Health & Medicine
Florence Nightingale understood the power of visualizing science
Florence Nightingale showed simple sanitation measures could stop infectious diseases’ spread, a timely message given the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
Notebook
Animals
Dancing peacock spiders turned an arachnophobe into an arachnologist
Just 22, Joseph Schubert has described 12 of 86 peacock spider species. One with a blue and yellow abdomen is named after Van Gogh’s Starry Night.
Features
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What lifestyle changes will shrink your carbon footprint the most?
You can reduce your carbon emissions, but the most influential changes will depend on your circumstances.
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How to protect your home from disasters amplified by climate change
How people can make their homes and communities more resilient to the effects of climate change, including floods, fires, heat and drought.
More Stories from the May 9, 2020 issue
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MathTo cook a perfect steak, use math
As a steak cooks in an oven, movement of liquid within the meat causes it to become extra juicy in the center in a way that can be predicted by mathematics.
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ChemistryBeets bleed red but a chemistry tweak can create a blue hue
A new blue dye derived from beet juice might prove an alternative to synthetic blue dyes in foods, cosmetics or fabrics.
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ArchaeologyThis is the oldest known string. It was made by a Neandertal
A cord fragment found clinging to a Neandertal’s stone tool is evidence that our close evolutionary relatives were string makers, too, scientists say.
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ClimateClimate change made a southwestern U.S. drought one of the worst in 1,200 years
Tree ring records show that the 2000–2018 drought in southwestern North America is among the most severe to strike the region in over a millennium.
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AnthropologyLucy’s species heralded the rise of long childhoods in hominids
Australopithecus afarensis had prolonged brain growth before the Homo genus appeared, but it still resulted in brains with chimplike neural structure.
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AnimalsHitchhiking oxpeckers warn endangered rhinos when people are nearby
Red-billed oxpeckers do more than just eat parasites from rhinos’ backs. The birds can alert the hunted mammals to potential danger, a study finds.
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SpaceSaturn’s auroras may explain the planet’s weirdly hot upper atmosphere
Data from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft could help solve Saturn’s mysterious “energy crisis.”
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Astronomy‘Oumuamua might be a shard of a broken planet
A new origin story for the solar system’s first known interstellar visitor suggests it may have been part of a world that got shredded by its star.
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PhysicsA year after the first black hole image, the EHT has been stymied by the coronavirus
With this year’s observing run canceled due to the coronavirus, the Event Horizon Telescope team is analyzing data from 2017 and 2018.
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SpaceA weird stellar explosion may have caused the brightest supernova yet seen
Astronomers may have spotted the first known example of a rare “pulsational pair-instability” supernova.
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AnimalsCold War nuclear test residue offers a clue to whale sharks’ ages
One unexpected legacy of the Cold War: Chemical traces of atomic bomb tests are helping scientists figure out whale shark ages.
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NeuroscienceMice’s facial expressions can reveal a wide range of emotions
Pleasure, pain, fear and other feelings can be reflected in mice’s faces, sophisticated computational analyses show.
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HumansSouthern Africa may have hosted a hominid transition 2 million years ago
Braincases excavated from the Drimolen caves suggest Homo erectus and Paranthropus robustus may have coexisted in southern Africa.
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LifeThe Great Barrier Reef is suffering its most widespread bleaching ever recorded
Major bleaching events are recurring with increasing frequency on the Great Barrier Reef, hindering its recovery.
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Archaeology50 years ago, explorer Thor Heyerdahl’s Atlantic crossing hit a snag
Explorer Thor Heyerdahl followed an aborted Atlantic voyage with a second trip that indicated ancient Egyptians could have traveled over long distances by sea.