News
- Astronomy
The Milky Way’s black hole is constantly bubbling
The disc of plasma surrounding the black hole at the heart of the Milky Way is constantly emitting flares both large and small.
- Animals
Crickets and flies face off in a quiet evolutionary battle
Male crickets in Hawaii softened their chirps once parasitic flies started hunting them. Now, it seems, the flies are homing in on the new tunes.
By Jake Buehler - Physics
The sound of clapping, explained by physics
The “Helmholtz resonator” concept explains the frequencies of sound produced by clapping the hands together in different configurations.
- Genetics
A child who got CAR-T cancer therapy is still disease-free 18 years later
The long-term survival of a patient with neuroblastoma suggests the personalized cancer treatment may work for solid tumors, not just blood cancers.
- Astronomy
The universe’s first supernovas probably produced water
Water may have formed less than 200 million years after the Big Bang, suggesting some conditions for life existed far earlier than previously thought.
- Planetary Science
A private mission to Venus aims to look for signs of life
If successful, Morning Star would be the first private mission to another planet and the first in over 30 years to directly measure Venus’s clouds.
- Health & Medicine
What experts say about childhood vaccines amid the Texas measles outbreak
As the Texas measles outbreak grows and HHS head RFK Jr. puts vaccines under new scrutiny, two experts answer questions about the public health tool.
- Tech
Squirty gels bring the taste of cake and coffee to virtual reality
By squirting chemicals onto a person’s tongue to taste, a new device aims to replicate food flavors for fuller virtual experiences.
By Simon Makin - Astronomy
Some of Earth’s meteors are probably coming all the way from a neighboring star system
The triple star system is sending comets, asteroids and meteors our way, and the number of interstellar objects entering the solar system will rise.
By Ken Croswell - Archaeology
Mount Vesuvius turned this ancient brain into glass. Here’s how
Transforming the brain tissue to glass would have required an extremely hot and fast-moving ash cloud, lab experiments suggest.
By Alex Viveros - Space
The International Space Station lacks microbial diversity. Is it too clean?
Hundreds of surface swabs reveal the station lacks microbial diversity, an imbalance that has been linked to health issues in other settings.
- Science & Society
Married men are doing more cleaning and laundry than in the past
Some scholars argue that efforts to equalize the time men and women spend on housework has stalled. An analysis reveals slow progress.
By Sujata Gupta