All Stories
- Health & Medicine
Human sperm don’t swim the way that anyone had thought
High-speed 3-D microscopy and mathematical analyses reveal that rolling and lopsided tail flicks keep the cells swimming in a straight line.
- Ecosystems
To save Appalachia’s endangered mussels, scientists hatched a bold plan
Biologists have just begun to learn whether their bold plan worked to save the golden riffleshell, a freshwater mussel teetering on the brink of extinction.
- Plants
This parasitic plant consists of just flashy flowers and creepy suckers
With only four known species, Langsdorffia are thieves stripped down to their essentials.
- Physics
The physics of solar flares could help scientists predict imminent outbursts
Physicists aim to improve space weather predictions by studying the physical processes that spark a solar flare.
- Animals
An immune system quirk may help anglerfish fuse with mates during sex
Deep-sea anglerfish that fuse to mate lack genes involved in the body’s response against pathogens or foreign tissue.
- Health & Medicine
Many U.S. neighborhoods with the worst air 40 years ago remain the most polluted
Air pollution has declined in the United States, but marginalized communities are still disproportionately affected despite the improvement.
- Planetary Science
The Perseverance rover caps off a month of Mars launches
With the launch of NASA’s Perseverance rover, the rush to the Red Planet is under way.
- Space
An Antarctic ice dome may offer the world’s clearest views of the night sky
The highest point in East Antarctica could be an ideal place for an optical telescope, a new study finds.
- Animals
A South American mouse is the world’s highest-dwelling mammal
At 6,739 meters above sea level, the yellow-rumped leaf-eared mouse survives low oxygen and freezing conditions atop a dormant volcano.
- Space
To rehearse Perseverance’s mission, scientists pretended to be a Mars rover
Seven Mars scientists pretended to be the Mars Perseverance rover on a training exercise in the Nevada desert.
- Health & Medicine
Close relatives of the coronavirus may have been in bats for decades
The coronavirus lineage that gave rise to SARS-CoV-2 has been circulating in bats for around 40 to 70 years, a study suggests.
- Oceans
These ancient seafloor microbes woke up after over 100 million years
Scientists discover that microbes that had lain dormant in the seafloor for millions of years can revive and multiply.
