News
- Physics
These worms can escape tangled blobs in an instant. Here’s how
Tangled masses of California blackworms form over minutes but untangle in tens of milliseconds. Now scientists know how.
- Health & Medicine
Pets and people bonded during the pandemic. But owners were still stressed and lonely
People grew closer to their pets during the first two years of COVID. But pet ownership didn’t reduce stress or loneliness, survey data show.
- Genetics
What was Rosalind Franklin’s true role in the discovery of DNA’s double helix?
Two researchers say that Rosalind Franklin knowingly collaborated with James Watson and Francis Crick to discover the molecular structure of DNA.
- Psychology
Native language might shape musical ability
People who speak tonal languages, where pitch alters meaning, are better at perceiving melody but worse at rhythm than speakers of nontonal languages.
- Climate
Thawing permafrost may unleash industrial pollution across the Arctic
As the frozen ground warms due to climate change, industrial pollutants could flow free from thousands of sites across the Arctic.
- Quantum Physics
A sapphire Schrödinger’s cat shows that quantum effects can scale up
The atoms in a piece of sapphire oscillate in two directions at once, a mimic of the hypothetically dead-and-alive feline.
- Planetary Science
Seismic waves crossing Mars’ core reveal details of the Red Planet’s heart
NASA’s InSight lander observed a quake and an impact on the farside of Mars, allowing researchers to measure physical properties of the planet’s core.
- Space
Rocky planets might have been able to form in the early universe
The James Webb telescope spied planet-building material around young stars in a nearby galaxy whose chemical makeup matches that of the early cosmos.
- Materials Science
A vegan leather made of dormant fungi can repair itself
Researchers developed a leather alternative made from dormant fungus that can be reanimated and then regrow when damaged.
- Health & Medicine
A graphene “tattoo” could help hearts keep their beat
A proof-of-concept electronic heart tattoo relies on graphene to act as an ultrathin, flexible pacemaker. In rats, it treated an irregular heartbeat.
- Animals
This elephant peels bananas, but only slightly ripe ones
Pang Pha, an Asian elephant at Zoo Berlin, probably picked up the skill by observing her zookeeper.
- Life
Comb jellies have a bizarre nervous system unlike any other animal
A 3-D map of the comb jelly “nerve net” reveals fused neurons that lack the space, or synapses, most neurons use to communicate. Did it evolve independently?
