All Stories
- Earth
Smoke from Australian fires rose higher into the ozone layer than ever before
The catastrophic wildfires in Australia around New Year’s generated a massive smoke plume that still hasn’t dissipated in the stratosphere.
- Animals
Larvaceans’ underwater ‘snot palaces’ boast elaborate plumbing
Mucus houses have valves and ducts galore that help giant larvaceans extract food from seawater.
- Science & Society
Real-life scientists inspire these comic book superheroes
Three scientists are publishing comics casting researchers as heroes, and hope the cartoon format and pared-down storyline can boost science literacy.
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History reveals how societies survive plagues
Editor in chief Nancy Shute writes about how societies have survived plagues, racial inequity, the coronavirus and racism as a public health crisis.
- Environment
How giving cash to poor families may also save trees in Indonesia
Indonesia’s poverty reduction program also reduced deforestation by 30 percent, researchers say.
- Archaeology
Clues to the earliest known bow-and-arrow hunting outside Africa have been found
Possible arrowheads at a rainforest site in Sri Lanka date to 48,000 years ago.
- Life
Fossil footprints show some crocodile ancestors walked on two legs
The 106-million-year-old tracks suggest that other puzzling nearby fossils were also likely made by a bipedal croc ancestor, not a giant pterosaur.
- Neuroscience
The way the coronavirus messes with smell hints at how it affects the brain
Conflicting reports offer little clarity about whether COVID-19 targets the brain.
- Health & Medicine
A critically ill COVID-19 patient just got a double lung transplant
A young woman whose lungs could not recover from the coronavirus infection is doing well after a double lung transplant.
- Ecosystems
Bringing sea otters back to the Pacific coast pays off, but not for everyone
Benefits of reintroducing sea otters in the Pacific Northwest, such as boosting tourism, vastly outweigh the costs, a new analysis shows.
- Life
Scientists want to build a Noah’s Ark for the human microbiome
Just as the Svalbard Global Seed Vault protects global crop diversity, the Microbiota Vault may one day protect the microbes on and in our bodies.
