All Stories
- Animals
Climate change could threaten monarch mass migration
Suitable milkweed habitat in Mexico may shift south, fracturing existing migration routes and possibly pushing some butterflies to stay put.
- Earth
Metal pollution from a rocket reentry detected for the first time
Direct detection of lithium from a SpaceX rocket reentry offers new evidence that metal pollution from space debris could threaten the ozone layer.
- Physics
Here’s why sneakers squeak on the basketball court
Tiny, repeating detachments between sole and floor — thousands of times a second — create the distinctive squeak heard on the court, data show.
- Animals
Keeping a beat wins caterpillars friends in low places
Finding a caterpillar with rhythm was “mind-blowing,” suggesting it might be a more widespread part of animal communication than thought.
- Life
An African monkey ate a rope squirrel and came down with mpox
Fecal analyses and necropsies suggest a fire-footed rope squirrel was the source of a 2023 mpox outbreak among sooty mangabeys in Côte d’Ivoire.
- Animals
Intricate silk helps net-casting spiders ensnare prey in webs
Rufous net-casting spiders can tune the stiffness and elasticity of their webs thanks to loops of silk, scanning electron microscope images reveal.
- Health & Medicine
A lab on wheels is tracking HIV spread in war-torn Ukraine
During a test drive, the mobile lab van uncovered a drug-resistant HIV strain that sprung up after the ongoing war with Russia started.
- Planetary Science
Venus has a massive lava tube
A collapsed lava tube detected in 30-year-old radar data from Venus may be part of a much wider network of underground caves.
- Archaeology
Iron Age mass grave may hold unusual victims: mostly women and children
A land dispute may have led to the massacre 3,000 years ago, suggesting Europe’s transition to farming wasn’t always peaceful.
- Genetics
Wanderlust may be written in our DNA
A new study suggests that inherited traits explain a small but measurable share of why some people relocate far from where they were born.
- Health & Medicine
This itch-triggering protein also sends signals to stop scratching
The TRPV4 protein’s dual nature, found in studies with mice, may complicate the hunt for human itch treatments
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Finding the story
Editor in Chief Nancy Shute discusses how our reporters find unique stories, from vaccine beer to a particle collider’s retirement to the rise of AI scientists.
