All Stories

  1. Health & Medicine

    What can period blood reveal about a person’s health?

    The FDA recently approved a menstrual blood test for diabetes, the first diagnostic of any kind based on period blood. It may be just the beginning.

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  2. Science & Society

    In ‘Get the Picture,’ science helps explore the meaning of art

    Journalist Bianca Bosker infiltrates the secretive art world to understand the science and psychology of why art matters to the human experience.

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  3. Artificial Intelligence

    This robot can tell when you’re about to smile — and smile back

    Using machine learning, researchers trained Emo to make facial expressions in sync with humans.

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  4. Animals

    This newfound longhorn beetle species is unusually fluffy

    Discovered in Australia, the beetle is covered in whitish hairs and has distinctive eye lobes, antennae and leg shapes.

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  5. Animals

    50 years ago, scientists wondered how birds find their way home

    In the 1970s, lab tests hinted that birds can navigate using magnetic fields. New studies suggest that beak and eye proteins are behind the ability.

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  6. Readers discuss Mimas’ hidden ocean and ancient cave art

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  7. Rethinking how we live with wildfires

    Editor in chief Nancy Shute discusses a new approach for managing wildfires that includes collaboration with local and Indigenous communities.

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  8. Math

    Scientists find a naturally occurring molecule that forms a fractal

    The protein assembles itself into a repeating triangle pattern. The fractal seems to be an accident of evolution, scientists say.

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  9. Animals

    In a first, these crab spiders appear to collaborate, creating camouflage

    Scientists found a pair of mating crab spiders blending in with a flower. The report may be the first known case of cooperative camouflage in spiders.

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  10. Life

    This marine alga is the first known eukaryote to pull nitrogen from air

    An alga’s bacterial symbiote has evolved into an organelle that turns atmospheric nitrogen into ammonia, making the alga unique among eukaryotes.

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  11. Space

    50 years ago, scientists found a lunar rock nearly as old as the moon

    Studies of such rocks continue to reveal secrets about the moon’s history.

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  12. Space

    How a sugar acid crucial for life could have formed in interstellar clouds

    Computer calculations and lab experiments have revealed a possible mechanism for the creation of glyceric acid, which has been seen in meteorites.

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