All Stories
- Animals
This ancient fowl bit like a dinosaur and pecked like a bird
A new fossil of Ichthyornis dispar helped scientists create a 3-D reconstruction of the ancient bird’s skull, shedding light on early bird evolution.
- Anthropology
Butchered rhino bones place hominids in the Philippines 700,000 years ago
Stone tools and butchery marks point to an ancient hominid presence on islands in the Philippines.
- Climate
Bull sharks and bottlenose dolphins are moving north as the ocean warms
Rising temperatures are making ocean waters farther north more hospitable for a variety of marine species.
- Physics
Neutron stars shed neutrinos to cool down quickly
Scientists find the first clear evidence of rapid cooling of a neutron star by neutrino emission.
- Science & Society
Does our latest issue look fat? If so, that’s a good thing
Editor in Chief Nancy Shute enthuses about three enterprise stories featured in this issue of Science News magazine.
- Particle Physics
Readers puzzled by particle physics and a papal decree
Readers had questions about neutrinoless double beta decay and the history of domesticated rabbits.
- Animals
Defenseless moths do flying impressions of scary bees and wasps
Faking that erratic bee flight or no-nonsense wasp zoom might save a moth’s life.
- Health & Medicine
Synthetic opioids involved in more deaths than prescription opioids
Winning a ghastly contest, synthetic opioids become most common drug involved in U.S. overdose deaths, bypassing prescription opioids in 2016.
- Animals
How a social lifestyle helped drive a river otter species to near extinction
A reconstruction of 20th-century hunting practices reveals why one species of Amazon river otters nearly went extinct while another persisted.
- Archaeology
How a backyard pendulum saw sliced into a Bronze Age mystery
A saw no one has seen may have built Bronze Age Greek palaces.
- Planetary Science
Last year’s solar eclipse set off a wave in the upper atmosphere
The August 2017 solar eclipse launched a wave in the upper atmosphere that was detected from Brazil after the eclipse ended.
- Plants
New genetic details may help roses come up smelling like, well, roses
A detailed genetic look at China roses and an old European species shows that there’s a built-in trade-off between color and scent.
