All Stories
- Animals
These songbirds violently fling and then impale their prey
A loggerhead shrike that skewers small animals on barbed wire gives mice whiplash shakeups.
- Astronomy
Jocelyn Bell Burnell wins big physics prize for 1967 pulsar discovery
Astrophysicist Jocelyn Bell Burnell speaks about winning the Breakthrough Prize, impostor syndrome and giving back.
- Agriculture
How plant microbes could feed the world and save endangered species
Scientists have only scratched the surface of the plant microbiome, but they already believe it might increase crop yield and save species from extinction.
- Planetary Science
Saturn has two hexagons, not one, swirling around its north pole
NASA’s Cassini spacecraft spied a vortex growing high over Saturn’s north pole, whose hexagonal shape mirrors a famous underlying cyclone.
- Health & Medicine
50 years ago, a pessimistic view for heart transplants
Surgeon Christiaan Barnard performed the first successful human-to-human heart transplant in 1967. In 1968, he predicted that patients would survive five years at best. Fortunately, he was wrong.
- Astronomy
Readers’ interest piqued by Parker Solar Probe, general relativity and more
Readers had questions about NASA's Parker Solar Probe, Einstein's general relativity theory and underwater cables used as earthquake sensors.
- Astronomy
To boldly go where no robot explorer has gone before
Editor in Chief Nancy Shute discusses the importance of robotic space missions for scientific research.
- Genetics
German skeletons hint that medieval warrior groups recruited from afar
Graveyard finds may come from an ancient European warrior household with political pull.
- Planetary Science
Jupiter’s magnetic field is surprisingly weird
New results from NASA’s Juno spacecraft reveal different magnetic behavior in the planet’s northern and southern hemispheres.
- Quantum Physics
Rubidium atoms mimic the Eiffel Tower, a Möbius strip and other 3-D shapes
Scientists have arranged atoms of the element rubidium into complex three-dimensional structures.
- Health & Medicine
Teens born from assisted pregnancies may have higher blood pressure
Kids born from reproductive technologies such as in vitro fertilization are susceptible to high blood pressure as adolescents, a small study finds.
- Animals
A gentoo penguin’s dinner knows how to fight back
Cameras attached to gentoo penguins off the Falkland Islands revealed that, despite the birds’ small size, their lobster krill prey can sometimes win in a fight.
