News
- Animals
A clever molecular trick extends the lives of these ant queens
Ant queens typically live much longer than their workers by blocking a key part of a molecular pathway implicated in aging, a new study suggests.
- Health & Medicine
Who has the highest risk of long COVID? It’s complicated
Long COVID can look different for different people, making it difficult to pinpoint the risk factors behind it.
- Life
Ancient ‘demon ducks’ may have been undone by their slow growth
Mihirung birds grew to more than half a ton and took their time getting there. That slow growth may have been a vulnerability when humans got to Australia.
- Space
Physicists dispute a claim of detecting a black hole’s ‘photon ring’
A thin ring of light around a black hole, which would probe gravity in a new way, has been found, one team claims. Skeptics aren’t convinced.
- Paleontology
This bizarre ancient critter has been kicked out of a group that includes humans
A wee sea creature without an anus was thought to be the oldest deuterostome. New imaging showing it had spines led to its reclassification.
- Earth
The Tonga eruption may have spawned a tsunami as tall as the Statue of Liberty
A massive undersea volcanic eruption in the South Pacific in January created a tsunami that was initially 90 meters tall, computer simulations suggest.
- Neuroscience
COVID-19 gave new urgency to the science of restoring smell
With newfound pressure from the pandemic, olfactory training and a host of other newer treatments are now getting a lot more attention.
- Astronomy
The James Webb telescope spotted CO2 in an exoplanet’s atmosphere
The first definitive detection of the gas on a world in another solar system paves the way for detections in planets that are more Earthlike.
- Space
NASA’s Artemis I mission sets the stage for our return to the moon
The launch will test many aspects of the rocket, capsule and spacesuits that will take astronauts back to the moon.
- Physics
‘Chameleon’ forces remain elusive in a new dark energy experiment
A hypothetical fifth force associated with “chameleon” dark energy and that morphs based on its environment didn’t turn up in a sensitive experiment.
- Science & Society
A new seasoning smells like meat thanks to sugar — and mealworms
A spoonful of sugars could help cooked mealworms go down more easily, a potential boon for the planet.
- Anthropology
7-million-year-old limb fossils may be from the earliest known hominid
An earlier report on one of the bones of a 7-million-year-old creature that may have walked upright has triggered scientific misconduct charges.
