All Stories
- Health & Medicine
How coronavirus vaccines still help people who already had COVID-19
Coronavirus vaccines give the immune system of previously infected people a boost, probably giving those people better protection against new variants.
- Planetary Science
See some of the most intriguing photos from NASA’s Perseverance rover so far
Six months ago, Perseverance landed on the Red Planet. Here’s what the rover has been observing.
- Physics
With a powerful laser blast, scientists near a nuclear fusion milestone
A National Ignition Facility experiment spawned nuclear fusion reactions that released nearly as much energy as was used to ignite them.
- Earth
Haiti’s citizen seismologists helped track its devastating quake in real time
Two scientists explain how citizen scientists and their work could help provide a better understanding of Haiti’s seismic hazards.
- Science & Society
How extreme heat from climate change distorts human behavior
As temperatures rise, violence and aggression go up while focus and productivity decline. The well off can escape to cool spaces; the poor cannot.
- Plants
A well-known wildflower turns out to be a secret carnivore
A species of false asphodel wildflower snags prey with gluey, enzyme-secreting hairs, leaving a trail of insect corpses on its flowering stem.
- Health & Medicine
New studies hint that the coronavirus may be evolving to become more airborne
More coronavirus RNA is in fine aerosols than in larger droplets, but masks can reduce the amount of virus in the air.
- Animals
Sunbirds’ dazzling feathers are hot, in both senses of the word
Iridescent feathers reflect vivid colors. But they also become scorching hot in the sunlight, a study finds.
- Space
Vera Rubin’s work on dark matter led to a paradigm shift in cosmology
‘Bright Galaxies, Dark Matter, and Beyond’ tells the story of how astronomer Vera Rubin provided key evidence for the existence of dark matter.
- Archaeology
A 1,000-year-old grave may have held a powerful nonbinary person
A medieval grave in Finland, once thought to maybe hold a respected woman warrior, may belong to someone who didn’t have a strictly male or female identity.
- Space
Jupiter’s intense auroras superheat its upper atmosphere
Jupiter’s hotter-than-expected upper atmosphere may be caused by high-speed charged particles slamming into the air high above the poles.
- Life
Probiotics help lab corals survive deadly heat stress
In a lab experiment, probiotics prevented the death of corals under heat stress, suggesting beneficial microbes could help save ailing reefs.
