News
- Space
In a rare event, the moon got a massive new crater
A crater as wide as two American football fields formed in spring 2024, a size expected roughly once a century. A NASA orbiter got to watch.
- Animals
Female giant rainforest mantises grow up to strike harder than males
Scientists tracked mantis strike force from youth to adulthood, showing females eventually hit far harder than males. Why is a mystery.
- Chemistry
Long nails don’t work on touchscreens. An experimental polish could help
Proton movement in the nail polish probably activates the touchscreen, but the formula isn’t ready to hit shelves yet.
- Animals
Mosquitoes get the ‘I’m full’ signal from their butts, not their brains
Mosquitoes stop feeding because signals from rectal cells tell them they’re full, offering a target for preventing human bites.
- Archaeology
A new study questions when people first reached South America
Data suggest people lived at Chile’s Monte Verde site thousands of years later than thought, challenging key “pre-Clovis” evidence. Not all agree.
- Earth
Earth’s continental plates were moving 3.48 billion years ago
Magnetic crystals provide the earliest evidence yet of the plate tectonics that likely made Earth habitable, pushing its start back by 140 million years.
- Physics
A static electricity mystery comes to the surface
Seemingly random charging of identical materials depends on the carbonaceous molecules stuck to their surfaces
- Animals
Sharks are ingesting drugs in the Bahamas
Nearly one third of sharks studied near the Bahamas’ Eleuthera Island were found to have caffeine, painkillers and other drugs in their bloodstreams.
- Animals
Platypus fur has a surprising feature seen only in bird feathers
Platypuses are the first mammals known to have hollow melanosomes, pigment-bearing structures found in the hair of many animals.
- Climate
City skylines influence cloud formation above them
Satellite data show that U.S. cities have more nighttime cloud cover than nearby countryside, and building height and density help explain why.
- Health & Medicine
Smartwatch data can be used to assess early diabetes risk
When combined with clinical markers, smartwatch data was able to help detect insulin resistance with nearly 90 percent accuracy.
- Climate
Extreme heat is cutting the time people can safely be active outdoors
Heat and humidity now severely limit light physical activity for millions of people around the world, with older adults facing the greatest burden.
