All Stories
- Health & Medicine
Touches early in life may make a big impact on newborn babies’ brains
The type and amount of touches a newborn baby gets in the first days of life may shape later responses to touch perception, a study suggests.
- Neuroscience
Lab tests aren’t the answer for every science question
Acting Editor in Chief Elizabeth Quill discusses the value of observational science.
- Particle Physics
Readers question supernova physics
Star-destroying neutrinos, heart-hugging robots and more in reader feedback.
- Planetary Science
How Pluto’s haze could explain its red spots
Pluto’s collapsing atmosphere may explain the dwarf planet’s seemingly random ruddy spots.
- Animals
Colorful pinwheel puts a new spin on mouse pregnancy
Among the winners of the 2017 Wellcome Image Awards is a rainbow of mouse placentas that shows how a mother’s immune system affects placental development.
- Animals
Tool use in sea otters doesn’t run in the family
A genetic study suggests that tool-use behavior isn’t hereditary in sea otters, and that only some animals need to use tools due to the type of food available in their ecosystem.
- Particle Physics
Large Hadron Collider experiment nabs five new particles
LHCb experiment detects new particles composed of two strange quarks and one charm quark.
- Health & Medicine
Cancer cells cast a sweet spell on the immune system
Tumors have surface sugars that persuade the body’s defenses to look the other way. New therapies are being devised to break the trance.
- Astronomy
Close pass by sun didn’t radically alter comet 67P’s landscape
Landslides on comet 67P shot plumes of dust into space, but changes like these might not radically alter the landscape of the comet.
- Life
Life on Earth may have begun as dividing droplets
Chemical droplets could split and reproduce in the presence of an energy source, new computer simulations suggest.
- Physics
Single-atom magnets store bits of data
Scientists read and write data by harnessing the magnetic properties of holmium atoms.
- Plants
Genetic switch offers clue to why grasses are survival masters
Scientists have identified a genetic switch that helps grasses regulate their carbon dioxide intake.
