Science & Society
In ‘Get the Picture,’ science helps explore the meaning of art
Journalist Bianca Bosker infiltrates the secretive art world to understand the science and psychology of why art matters to the human experience.
Featured Articles in this Issue
-
Cover Story
Will stashing more CO2 in the ocean help slow climate change?
Research is needed on how ocean carbon removal methods — such as iron fertilization and direct capture — could impact the environment.
Reviews & Previews
Science Visualized
Animals
See 3-D models of animal anatomy from openVertebrate’s public collection
Over six years, researchers took CT scans of over 13,000 vertebrates to make museum collections more easily accessible to researchers and the public.
Notebook
Health & Medicine
More than 1 billion people worldwide are now estimated to have obesity
A new analysis suggests that the prevalence of obesity has doubled in women, tripled in men and quadrupled in children and adolescents from 1990 to 2022.
Features
-
The blood holds clues to understanding long COVID
A growing cadre of labs are sketching out some of the molecular and cellular characters at play in long COVID, a once-seemingly inscrutable disease.
More Stories from the April 6, 2024 issue
- Animals
A decades-old mystery has been solved with the help of newfound bee species
Masked bees in Australia and French Polynesia have long-lost relatives in Fiji, suggesting that the bees’ ancestors island hopped.
- Animals
Daddy longlegs look like they have two eyes. That doesn’t count the hidden ones
Despite its two-eyed appearance, Phalangium opilio has six peepers. The four optical remnants shed light on the arachnids’ evolutionary history.
- Particle Physics
Forests might serve as enormous neutrino detectors
Trees could act as antennas that pick up radio waves of ultra-high energy neutrinos interactions, one physicist proposes.
- Animals
50 years ago, scientists wondered how birds find their way home
In the 1970s, lab tests hinted that birds can navigate using magnetic fields. New studies suggest that beak and eye proteins are behind the ability.
- Health & Medicine
The U.S. now has a drug for severe frostbite. How does it work?
Iloprost has been shown to prevent the need to amputate frozen fingers and toes. It’s now approved for use to treat severe frostbite in the U.S.
- Health & Medicine
Here’s why pain might last after persistent urinary tract infections
Experiments in mice reveal that the immune response to a UTI spurs nerve growth in the bladder and lowers the pain threshold.
- Health & Medicine
Long COVID brain fog may be due to damaged blood vessels in the brain
MRI scans of long COVID patients with brain fog suggest that the blood brain barrier may be leaky.
- Life
This is the first egg-laying amphibian found to feed its babies ‘milk’
Similar to mammals, these ringed caecilians make a nutrient-rich milk-like fluid to feed their mewling hatchlings up to six times a day.
- Animals
Male dragonflies’ wax coats might protect them against a warming climate
The reflective wax, which cools males on sunny courtship flights, may also armor them against the effects of climate change.
- Animals
Big monarch caterpillars don’t avoid toxic milkweed goo. They binge on it
Instead of nipping milkweed to drain the plants’ defensive sap, older monarch caterpillars may seek the toxic sap. Lab larvae guzzled it from a pipette.
- Animals
Male mammals aren’t always bigger than females
In a study of over 400 mammal species, less than half have males that are, on average, heavier than females, undermining a long-standing assumption.
- Health & Medicine
Four years on, the COVID-19 pandemic has a long tail of grief
Researchers are studying the magnitude and impact that grief from the COVID-19 pandemic has had and will have for years to come.
- Animals
50 years ago, scientists wondered how birds find their way home
In the 1970s, lab tests hinted that birds can navigate using magnetic fields. New studies suggest that beak and eye proteins are behind the ability.
- Earth
Earth’s oldest known earthquake was probably triggered by plate tectonics
Billion-year-old rocks in South Africa hold evidence for the onset of plate tectonics early in Earth’s history.
- Psychology
Timbre can affect what harmony is music to our ears
The acoustic qualities of instruments may have influenced variations in musical scales and preferred harmonies.
