Life
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Animals
When tarantulas grow blue hair
Azure coloring is surprisingly common in the spiders, though they themselves are colorblind.
- Physics
Aircraft industry could take tips from penguins
Tiny grooves and an oily sheath prevent water droplets from freezing on the feathers of some penguins.
- Science & Society
Climate, new physics and Jupiter on the horizon for 2016
The first issue of the new year features stories about what will, editor in chief Eva Emerson predicts, hold on as scientific newsmakers during 2016.
- Climate
Arctic passageways let species mingle
People aren’t the only animals likely to use passages that open up as the Arctic melts.
- Particle Physics
Dark matter helped destroy the dinosaurs, physicist posits
In ‘Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs,’ Lisa Randall finds connections between particle physics, cosmology, geology and paleontology.
- Animals
Ants’ size and profession controlled by chemical tags on DNA
Epigenetic marks determine whether female Florida carpenter ants are soldiers or foragers.
- Paleontology
12 amazing fossil finds of 2015
From an ancient sponge ancestor to the Carolina Butcher, scientists learned a lot about life on Earth this year.
- Animals
Lemurs chat only with their best friends
Ring-tailed lemurs maintain friendships built with grooming by calling to each other, a new study finds.
- Science & Society
These truisms proved false in 2015
Don’t always believe what you hear. These truisms turned out to be false in 2015.
- Animals
Puff adders appear ‘invisible’ to noses
The snakey scent of puff adders proves difficult for even sensitive animal noses to detect.
- Paleontology
Bubbles may have sheltered Earth’s early life
Bubbles formed on ancient shorelines offer scientists a new place to look for traces of early life.
- Health & Medicine
Anatomy of the South Korean MERS outbreak
The Middle East respiratory syndrome virus, which infected 186 people in South Korea in 2015, quickly spread within and between hospitals via a handful of “superspreaders.”
