All Stories
- Animals
Giant ground sloths may have been meat-eating scavengers
Contrary to previous assumptions, at least one ancient giant ground sloth was a meat eater.
- Chemistry
An easier, greener way to build molecules wins the chemistry Nobel Prize
Chemists Benjamin List and David MacMillan have sparked a whole new field that’s aided drug discovery and made chemistry more environmentally friendly.
- Astronomy
When James Webb launches, it will have a bigger to-do list than 1980s researchers suspected
The James Webb Space Telescope has been in development for so long that space science has changed in the meantime.
- Astronomy
Space rocks may have bounced off baby Earth, but slammed into Venus
New simulations suggest a way to help explain dramatic differences between the sibling worlds.
- Physics
Work on complex systems, including Earth’s climate, wins the physics Nobel Prize
Syukuro Manabe and Klaus Hasselmann pioneered work on computer simulations of Earth’s climate. Giorgio Parisi found hidden patterns in disordered complex materials.
- Chemistry
Radiometric dating puts pieces of the past in context. Here’s how
Carbon dating and other techniques answer essential questions about human history, our planet and the solar system.
- Health & Medicine
A custom brain implant lifted a woman’s severe depression
An experimental device interrupts brain activity linked to a woman’s low mood. The technology, she said, has changed her lens on life.
- Quantum Physics
Scientists are one step closer to error-correcting quantum computers
In a quantum computer made with trapped ions, multiple quantum bits were combined into one to detect mistakes.
- Health & Medicine
Discovering how we sense temperature and touch wins the 2021 medicine Nobel Prize
Finding sensors on nerve cells that detect temperature and pressure nets California scientists David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian a Nobel Prize.
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Good things come to astronomers who wait
Editor in chief Nancy Shute discusses the long-awaited launch of the James Webb Space Telescope and an update on our SN 10: Scientists to Watch.
- Health & Medicine
A new antiviral pill cuts COVID-19 hospitalization and death rates
Merck says its drug, molnupiravir, stops viral replication and can be taken right after a COVID-19 diagnosis.
