All Stories

Tech

SpaceX launches and lands its first reused rocket

Aerospace company SpaceX has successfully reused a Falcon 9 rocket’s booster section for the first time.

Health & Medicine

Getting dengue first may make Zika infection much worse

Experiments in cells and mice suggest that a previous exposure to dengue or West Nile can make a Zika virus infection worse.

Planetary Science

Extreme gas loss dried out Mars, MAVEN data suggest

Over the planet’s history, the Martian atmosphere has lost 66 percent of its argon and a majority of its carbon dioxide, according to data from NASA’s MAVEN spacecraft.

Paleontology

New tyrannosaur had a sensitive side

Tyrannosaurs may have had sensitive snouts that detected temperature and touch.

Health & Medicine

For kids, daily juice probably won’t pack on the pounds

An analysis of existing studies suggests that regular juice drinking isn’t linked to much weight gain in kids.

Animals

Mosquito flight is unlike that of any other insect

High-speed video and modeling reveal a more complex understanding of mosquito flight.

Oceans

Thinning ice creates undersea Arctic greenhouses

Arctic sea ice thinned by climate change increasingly produces conditions favorable for phytoplankton blooms in the waters below, new research suggests.

Anthropology

Neandertals had an eye for patterns

Neandertals carved notches in a raven bone, possibly to produce a pleasing or symbolic pattern, scientists say.

Astronomy

Asteroid in Jupiter’s orbit goes its own way

Asteroid shares Jupiter’s orbit around the sun but travels in the opposite direction as the planet.

Genetics

Gene editing of human embryos yields early results

Gene editing in embryos has started in labs, but isn’t ready for the clinic.

Neuroscience

Sarcasm looks the same in the brain whether it’s words or emoji

Sarcasm via winking emoji affects the brain like verbal irony does.

Astronomy

Supermassive black hole gets kicked to the galactic curb

Gravitational waves may have given a supermassive black hole a big kick, with enough energy to send it flying toward the edges of its host galaxy.