All Stories
- Archaeology
For some early monks, impaired hearing amplified sounds of silence
Middle-ear ailments probably had little impact on early Christian monks’ lives.
- Paleontology
Cretaceous bird find holds new color clue
New molecular clues in 130-million-year-old bird fossil could help paleontologists firm up case for ancient color in dinosaurs.
- Animals
Brazilian free-tailed bats are the fastest fliers
Ultrafast flying by one bat species leaves birds in the dust.
- Humans
Oldest alphabet identified as Hebrew
Contested study indicates ancient Israelites developed first alphabet from Egyptian hieroglyphics.
- Animals
An echidna’s to-do list: Sleep. Eat. Dig up Australia.
Short-beaked echidna’s to-do list looks good for a continent losing other digging mammals.
- Physics
Whirlpools might have stirred up baby universe’s soup
Vortices appear in the quark-gluon plasma produced in heavy-ion collisions.
- Plants
Tweaking how plants manage a crisis boosts photosynthesis
Shortening plants’ recovery time after blasts of excessive light can boost crop growth.
- Astronomy
Mysterious radio signals pack power and brilliance
The brightest fast radio burst has been detected, while another team reveals a previous burst might have carried gamma rays as well as radio waves across space.
- Earth
How a ring of mountains forms inside a crater
Rocks drilled from the Chicxulub crater linked to the demise of the dinosaurs reveal how mountainous peak rings form within large impact craters.
- Health & Medicine
This week in Zika: Vaginal vulnerability, disease double trouble and more
Puerto Rico cases of Zika suggest that the virus prefers women. And two new findings reveal more about Zika’s transmission and ability to survive outside the body.
- Animals
In some ways, hawks hunt like humans
Raptors may track their prey in similar patterns to primates.
- Health & Medicine
50 years ago, fluoridation was promoted as a bone protector
In 1966, scientists hoped fluoride might protect adult bone health. While the results broke down over time, the benefits for teeth remain clear.
