Space
How ‘Our Moon’ shaped life on Earth and human history
Science News reviews Rebecca Boyle’s new wide-ranging book, which tells the story of the moon and its relationship with the inhabitants of Earth.
Featured Articles in this Issue
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Cover Story
How to build an internet on Mars
Future Red Planet inhabitants will need new ways to connect, including improved relay networks and an offshoot internet.
Reviews & Previews
Science Visualized
Paleontology
The oldest known fossilized skin shows how life adapted to land
The nearly 290 million-year-old cast belonged to a species of amniotes, four-legged vertebrates that today comprises all reptiles, birds and mammals.
Notebook
Physics
Here’s the science behind the burbling sound of water being poured
The height of the pour and the thickness of the stream help determine the loudness of the falling water.
Features
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U.S. opioid deaths are out of control. Can safe injection sites help?
A new NIH study will evalute the only two officially sanctioned sites, in New York City, and a future site in Providence, R.I.
More Stories from the February 10, 2024 issue
- Archaeology
An ancient, massive urban complex has been found in the Ecuadorian Amazon
Found by airborne laser scans, this settlement and others throughout Mesoamerica and the Amazon are shifting how archaeologists think about urbanism.
- Health & Medicine
The teen brain is especially susceptible to the harms of THC
Marijuana that’s higher in THC and concentrated cannabis products may pose even higher risks of addiction and psychosis.
- Chemistry
Here’s how tardigrades go into suspended animation
A new study offers more clues about the role of oxidation in signaling transitions between alive and mostly dead in tardigrades.
- Climate
Numbats are built to hold heat, making climate change extra risky for the marsupials
New thermal imaging shows how fast numbats’ surface temperature rises even at relatively reasonable temperatures.
- Life
Some honeybees in Italy regularly steal pollen off the backs of bumblebees
New observations suggest that honeybees stealing pollen from bumblebees may be a crime of opportunity, though documentation of it remains rare.
- Genetics
How ancient herders rewrote northern Europeans’ genetic story
New DNA analyses show the extent of the Yamnaya people’s genetic reach starting 5,000 years ago and how it made descendants prone to diseases like MS.
- Life
Here’s how poison dart frogs safely hoard toxins in their skin
A protein found in frog bodies may help the amphibians collect and transport toxins from their food to their skin for chemical defense.
- Anthropology
50 years ago, evidence showed that an extinct human ancestor walked upright
Fossil finds have since pushed back the ability of hominids to walk on two legs by millions of years.
