All Stories

  1. Health & Medicine

    Taking a weight-loss drug reduced a craving for opioids

    Early results from 20 people with opioid use disorder raise hopes that popular weight-loss drugs like Wegovy can tackle opioid addiction, too.

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  2. Readers discuss quantum gravity and more

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  3. Come along with us on a mathematical mystery tour

    Editor in chief Nancy Shute discusses an unexpected breakthrough on a puzzle that has intrigued mathematicians for almost a century.

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  4. Physics

    Here’s how scientists reached nuclear fusion ‘ignition’ for the first time

    The first fusion experiment to produce an energy excess required meticulous planning and also revealed a long-predicted heating phenomenon.

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  5. Neuroscience

    Ancient viruses helped speedy nerves evolve

    A retrovirus embedded in the DNA of some vertebrates helps turn on production of a protein needed to insulate nerve cells, aiding speedy thoughts.

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  6. Planetary Science

    NASA’s OSIRIS-REx nabbed over 120 grams of space rocks from asteroid Bennu

    After being stymied by two stuck screws, NASA finally accessed a trove of Bennu asteroid bits. Mission scientist Harold Connolly tells what’s next.

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  7. Agriculture

    Mixing up root microbes can boost tea’s flavor

    Inoculating tea plant roots with nitrogen-metabolizing bacteria enhances synthesis of theanine, an amino acid that gives tea its savoriness.

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  8. Health & Medicine

    Newfound immune cells are responsible for long-lasting allergies

    A specialized type of immune cell appears primed to make the type of antibodies that lead to allergies, two research groups report.

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  9. Archaeology

    These South American cave paintings reveal a surprisingly old tradition

    Radiocarbon dates point to an artistic design practice that began in Patagonia almost 8,200 years ago, several millennia earlier than previously recorded.

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  10. Agriculture

    Could a rice-meat hybrid be what’s for dinner?

    A hybrid food that combines rice, animal cells and fish gelatin could one day be a more sustainable way to produce meat.

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  11. Health & Medicine

    U.S. opioid deaths are out of control. Can safe injection sites help?

    A new NIH study will evalute the only two officially sanctioned sites, in New York City, and a future site in Providence, R.I.

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  12. Animals

    Does this drone image show a newborn white shark? Experts aren’t sure

    If a claim of the first-ever sighting of a newborn white shark holds, it could help solve a mystery of where adult white sharks give birth.

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