All Stories
- Physics
Colliding photons were spotted making matter. But are the photons ‘real’?
Smashups of particles of light creating electrons and positrons could demonstrate the physics of Einstein’s equation E=mc2.
- Health & Medicine
Schools are reopening. COVID-19 is still here. What does that mean for kids?
Children do get COVID-19, and some become very sick and even die. But the disease’s long-term effects on kids remain uncertain.
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Creating a ‘science of us’ has been a contentious effort
Editor in chief Nancy Shute discusses the evolution of behavioral science research over the past century.
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- Chemistry
50 years ago, scientists developed self-destructing plastic
In the 1970s, scientists developed plastic that could quickly break down when exposed to light. But that didn’t solve the world’s pollution problems.
- Health & Medicine
What science tells us about reducing coronavirus spread from wind instruments
Performers struggled to find evidence that would free them from musical lockdown, so they partnered with researchers to get some answers.
- Animals
Squirrels use parkour tricks when leaping from branch to branch
Squirrels navigate through trees by making rapid calculations to balance trade-offs between branch flexibility and the distance between tree limbs.
- Particle Physics
How particle detectors capture matter’s hidden, beautiful reality
Old and new detectors trace the whirling paths of subatomic particles.
- Space
A lunar magnetic field may have lasted for only a short time
New analyses of Apollo-era lunar rocks suggest that any magnetosphere that the moon ever had endured for no more than 500 million years.
- Physics
A bounty of potential gravitational wave events hints at exciting possibilities
Of about 1,200 possible events, most are probably false alarms, but some could be ripples in spacetime that are especially hard to spot.
- Animals
Snake-eating spiders are surprisingly common
Spiders from at least 11 families feed on serpents many times their size, employing a host of tactics to turn even venomous snakes into soup.
- Earth
A new book reveals stories of ancient life written in North America’s rocks
In ‘How the Mountains Grew,’ John Dvorak probes the interlinked geology and biology buried within the rocks of North America.
