News in Brief
- Animals
Watch a desert kangaroo rat drop-kick a rattlesnake
Desert kangaroo rats have a wide arsenal for dodging rattlesnake ambushes. But the most dramatic might be their powerful midair kick.
- Climate
One Antarctic ice shelf gets half its annual snowfall in just 10 days
Antarctica’s coasts get most of their snow from just a few big storms each year.
- Animals
Geneticists close in on how mosquitoes sniff out human sweat
A long-sought protein proves vital for mosquitoes’ ability to detect lactic acid, a great clue for finding a human.
- Health & Medicine
Treating cystic fibrosis patients before birth could safeguard organs
Starting a cystic fibrosis drug sooner than usual may protect an afflicted child’s lungs, pancreases and reproductive tissue, a study in ferrets hints.
- Health & Medicine
Epileptic seizures may scramble memories during sleep
Overnight seizures seemed to muddle memories in people with epilepsy.
- Particle Physics
How a proton gets its spin is surprisingly complicated
Pinning down the source of protons’ spin is surprisingly hard to do.
- Planetary Science
Ryugu is probably a chip off one of these two other asteroids
Japan’s Hayabusa2 team has narrowed down the asteroid Ryugu’s origins based on its color.
- Paleontology
In a first, a fossilized egg is found preserved inside an ancient bird
Scientists have found the first known fossil of a bird that died with an unlaid egg inside its body. The egg has been crushed by pressure over time.
- Health & Medicine
U.S. heart attack mortality reached a two-decade low in 2014
Deaths within 30 days of a heart attack have declined from 20 percent in 1995 to 12.4 percent in 2014, according to an analysis of Medicare patient data.
- Tech
An origami design helps this robot lift delicate and heavy cargo
Fragile items, such as soft fruits, as well as heavier goods are in safe hands with a new robotic gripper.
- Physics
Ultraprecise atomic clocks put Einstein’s special relativity to the test
Physics obeys the same rules no matter what direction you’re facing, a new experiment confirms.
- Health & Medicine
Stroke victims with busy immune responses may also see mental declines
A small study links an active immune response soon after a stroke with a loss in cognitive ability a year later.
