Feature
- Animals
Seeing past the jellyfish sting
Jellies don’t get nearly as much love as their cousins, the corals, but they deserve credit for providing homes to some creatures, dinner to others and more. They’re an integral part of the oceans.
- Planetary Science
NASA bets on asteroid mission as best path to Mars
NASA wants to bag an asteroid using robotic arms or an enormous sack and place the rock in the moon’s orbit for study. This may keep astronauts working but not, as NASA claims, get them Mars-ready.
- Astronomy
Searching for distant signals
Fast radio bursts are bright, brief and seem to come from very far away. Astronomers are pointing major telescopes skyward to solve the puzzle of these cryptic signals.
- Climate
How species will, or won’t, manage in a warming world
Fast evolution and flexibility, in biology and behavior, may allow some species to adapt to a warming world. Others may need help from humans, or risk dying out.
- Psychology
Online causes may attract more clicks than commitments
Online awareness campaigns can make people feel they’ve contributed to a good cause, but social scientists say the tangible benefits of such efforts may be small.
- Health & Medicine
Mammography’s limits becoming clear
It may be time to move way from blanket recommendations about mammography and empower women to decide for themselves, new work suggests.
- Cosmology
Dazzle or dust?
The unpredictable glow of galactic dust could undermine the biggest cosmological discovery in years.
- Life
Designer T cells emerge as weapons against disease
Decades of attempts to boost the immune system’s ability to fight disease are finally starting to pay off. Reprogrammed T cells serve as new weapons against cancer and autoimmune diseases.
- Neuroscience
Legalization trend forces review of marijuana’s dangers
Marijuana legalization advocates tout pot’s medicinal benefits and low addictiveness, while critics point to its neurological dangers. Research shows that the reality is somewhere in the middle.
- Cosmology
The mysterious boundary
A debate has arisen over whether an astronaut passing a black hole’s point of no return would get stretched to death or flash-fried. Resolving the controversy may lead to new insights about gravity and more.
- Humans
Big babies: High birthweight may signal later health risks
A high birthweight might signal health risks later in life.
- Archaeology
Written in bone
Researchers are reconstructing the migrations that carried agriculture into Europe by analyzing DNA from the skeletons of early farmers and the people they displaced.
