News
- Animals
Cone snail venom may trick mate-seeking worms into becoming meals
Cone snail venom contains worm pheromone mimics, suggesting the chemicals may be used to lure worms during hunting.
- Health & Medicine
Some COVID-19 survivors face another foe: PTSD
The rate of post-traumatic stress disorder among survivors of severe COVID-19 is comparable to the rate among survivors of some natural disasters.
- Health & Medicine
The COVID-19 pandemic is now a year old. What have scientists learned?
As we enter the pandemic’s second year, researchers share what they’ve learned and what they look forward to.
- Anthropology
Riches in a Bronze Age grave suggest it holds a queen
Researchers have long assumed mostly men ran ancient Bronze Age societies, but the find points to a female ruler in Spain 3,700 years ago.
- Health & Medicine
A year ago, we asked 6 questions about COVID-19. Here’s how the answers evolved
A year after launching our Coronavirus Update newsletter, we revisit the first topics we wrote about.
- Physics
A tiny gold ball is the smallest object to have its gravity measured
A gold sphere with a mass of about 90 milligrams pulled on another sphere in accordance with Newton’s law of universal gravitation.
- Health & Medicine
An experimental toothpaste aims to treat peanut allergy
By rolling an immune therapy into a toothbrushing routine, a company hopes to show its product can help build and maintain tolerance to allergens.
- Environment
The world wasted nearly 1 billion metric tons of food in 2019
A new United Nations global food waste report shows where waste can be reduced, which would decrease hunger and greenhouse gas emissions.
- Animals
A year after Australia’s wildfires, extinction threatens hundreds of species
As experts piece together a fuller picture of the scale of damage to wildlife, more than 500 species may need to be listed as endangered.
- Health & Medicine
People fully vaccinated against COVID-19 can socialize without masks, CDC says
Two weeks after their final COVID-19 shot, people can visit other vaccinated people indoors without masks or physical distancing.
- Animals
A sea slug’s detached head can crawl around and grow a whole new body
Chopped-up planarians regrow whole bodies from bits and pieces. But a sea slug head can regrow fancier organs such as hearts.
- Physics
A magnetic trap captures elusive ultracold plasma
Pinning plasma within a set of magnetic fields offers physicists a new way to study clean energy, space weather and the inner workings of stars.
