All Stories
- Animals
Dogs tune into people in ways even human-raised wolves don’t
Puppies outpace wolf pups at engaging with humans, even with less exposure to people, supporting the idea that domestication has wired dogs’ brains.
- Earth
Satellites show how a massive lake in Antarctica vanished in days
Within six days, an Antarctic lake with twice the volume of San Diego Bay drained away, leaving a deep sinkhole filled with fractured ice.
- Science & Society
How science overlooks Asian Americans
Existing scientific datasets fail to capture details on Asian Americans, making it hard to assess the group’s overall well-being.
- Health & Medicine
One mutation may have set the coronavirus up to become a global menace
A study pinpoints a key mutation that may have put a bat coronavirus on the path to becoming a human pathogen, helping it better infect human cells.
- Health & Medicine
50 years ago, scientists found a virus lurking in human cancer cells
In 1971, scientists were building a case for viruses as a cause of cancer. Fifty years later, cancer-preventing vaccines are now a reality.
- Science & Society
The gap in parenting time between middle- and working-class moms has shrunk
Some well-educated mothers are spending less time with their kids than before, while some less-educated mothers are spending more, a new study shows.
- Environment
Why planting tons of trees isn’t enough to solve climate change
Massive projects need much more planning and follow-through to succeed – and other tree protections need to happen too.
- Plants
How Romanesco cauliflower forms its spiraling fractals
By tweaking just three genes in a common lab plant, scientists have discovered the mechanism responsible for one of nature’s most impressive fractals.
- Materials Science
These weird, thin ice crystals are springy and bendy
Specially grown fibers of frozen water bend into curves and spring back when released.
- Life
Sea otters stay warm thanks to leaky mitochondria in their muscles
For the smallest mammal in the ocean, staying warm is a challenge. Now, scientists have figured out how the animals keep themselves toasty.
- Health & Medicine
How your DNA may affect whether you get COVID-19 or become gravely ill
A study of 45,000 people links 13 genetic variants to higher COVID-19 risks, including a link between blood type and infection and a newfound tie between FOXP4 and severe disease.
- Climate
Human-driven climate change sent Pacific Northwest temperatures soaring
As scientists dissect what pushed temperatures up to 5 degrees Celsius above previous records, they may have to revamp how to predict heat waves.
