News
- Life
How a virus turns caterpillars into zombies doomed to climb to their deaths
By manipulating genes used in vision, a virus sends its host caterpillar on a doomed quest for sunlight, increasing the chances for viral spread.
- Life
Lost genes may help explain how vampire bats survive on blood alone
The 13 identified genes underpin a range of physiological and behavioral strategies that the bats have evolved.
- Animals
Here’s how boa constrictors squeeze their dinner without suffocating themselves
Carefully controlled breathing allows boa constrictors to pull off their signature move without cutting off their own air supply.
- Climate
Forests help reduce global warming in more ways than one
Trees are often touted as bulwarks against climate change for their capacity to sequester carbon, but that’s just one part of the story.
- Astronomy
Here’s the best timeline yet for the Milky Way’s big events
A new study puts more precise dates on when the Milky Way formed its thick disk and collided with a neighboring galaxy.
- Paleontology
Spinosaurus’ dense bones fuel debate over whether some dinosaurs could swim
New evidence that Spinosaurus and its kin hunted underwater won't be the last word on whether some dinosaurs were swimmers.
- Science & Society
Social media crackdowns during the war in Ukraine make the internet less global
Social media has become an important battleground, and now stands to split along geopolitical lines.
- Physics
Levitating plastic beads mimic the physics of spinning asteroids
"Tabletop asteroids," buoyed by sound waves, hint at why some loosely bound space rocks have odd shapes and can’t spin too quickly.
- Astronomy
NASA’s exoplanet count surges past 5,000
With a new batch of 60 confirmed exoplanets, the number of known worlds in our galaxy reaches another milestone.
- Astronomy
The universe’s background starlight is twice as bright as expected
Images from the New Horizons spacecraft suggest that light from all known galaxies accounts for only half of the cosmos’ visible background glow.
- Planetary Science
Diamonds may stud Mercury’s crust
Billions of years of meteorite impacts may have flash-baked much of a primitive graphite crust into precious gemstones.
- Climate
Smoke from Australia’s intense fires in 2019 and 2020 damaged the ozone layer
Massive fires like those that raged in Australia in 2019–2020 can eat away at Earth’s protective ozone layer, researchers find.
