All Stories

  1. Animals

    Here’s how honeyeaters and other birds thrive on sugary diets

    Birds that feed on nectar or fruit evolved better mechanisms for managing metabolism, blood pressure and high glucose.

    By Bethany Brookshire
  2. Anthropology

    Mosquitoes began biting humans more than a million years ago

    A DNA analysis suggests mosquitoes shifted from nonhuman primates to early humans nearly 2 million years ago.

    By Tom Metcalfe
  3. Health & Medicine

    Can you trust the results from gut microbiome tests? Maybe not

    Seven firms reported inconsistent results on the same sample, some over multiple tests. These gut microbe discrepancies could have health consequences.

    By Tina Hesman Saey
  4. 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.

    By Erin Garcia de Jesús
  5. 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.

    By Adam Mann
  6. 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.

    By Emily Conover
  7. 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.

    By Jake Buehler
  8. 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.

    By Erin Garcia de Jesús
  9. 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.

    By Emily Conover
  10. 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.

    By Kamal Nahas
  11. 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.

    By Tom Metcalfe
  12. 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.

    By Tom Metcalfe