News
- Life
How a mound-building bird shapes its Australian ecosystem
In Australia’s mallee woodlands, malleefowl dutifully construct mounds to incubate their eggs, redistributing nutrients across the landscape.
By Jake Buehler - Planetary Science
Mars has two speeds of sound
High-pitched clacks from a laser on NASA’s Perseverance rover zapping rocks traveled faster than the lower-pitched hum of the Ingenuity helicopter’s blades.
By Liz Kruesi - Particle Physics
The W boson might be extra hefty. If so, it could hint at new physics
A new measurement of the W boson’s mass, made by smashing particles together, reveals a potential crack in physics’ standard model.
- Paleontology
A hole in a Triceratops named Big John probably came from combat
The nature of the wound and signs of healing suggest that the dinosaur's bony frill was impaled by a Triceratops rival.
By Anna Gibbs - Animals
How a western banded gecko eats a scorpion
New high-speed video details how usually mild-mannered geckos shake and incapacitate their venomous prey.
- Health & Medicine
Racial bias can seep into U.S. patients’ medical notes
Black patients were more often described negatively in medical notes than white patients, which may impact care.
- Astronomy
A star nicknamed ‘Earendel’ may be the most distant yet seen
Analyzing Hubble Space Telescope images revealed a star whose light originates from about 12.9 billion light-years away, researchers say.
By Liz Kruesi - Climate
A UN report says stopping climate change is possible but action is needed now
We already have a broad array of tools to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030, a new report finds. Now we just have to use them.
By Carolyn Gramling and Nikk Ogasa - Space
Binary stars keep masquerading as black holes
The drive to find black holes in ever-larger astronomy datasets is leading some researchers astray.
By Liz Kruesi - Humans
Where you grew up may shape your navigational skills
People raised in cities with simple, gridlike layouts were worse at navigating in a video game designed for studying the brain.
- Astronomy
When the Magellanic Clouds cozy up to each other, stars are born
The Magellanic Clouds, the two closest star-making galaxies to the Milky Way, owe much of their stellar creativity to each other.
By Ken Croswell - Genetics
We finally have a fully complete human genome
Finding the missing 8 percent of the human genome gives researchers a more powerful tool to better understand human health, disease and evolution.