News
- Health & Medicine
4 reasons not to worry about that ‘new’ swine flu in the news
Researchers identified a pig influenza virus that shares features with one that sparked the 2009 pandemic — that doesn’t mean another one is imminent.
- Animals
A sparrow song remix took over North America with astonishing speed
A variation on the white-throated sparrow’s song spread 3,300 kilometers in just a few decades.
- Earth
Earth’s annual e-waste could grow to 75 million metric tons by 2030
Unwanted electronic waste is piling up rapidly around the globe, while collection and recycling efforts are failing to keep pace, a new report shows.
- Health & Medicine
Why COVID-19 is both startlingly unique and painfully familiar
As doctors and patients learn more about the wide range of COVID-19 symptoms, the coronavirus is proving both novel and recognizable.
- Space
A newfound exoplanet may be the exposed core of a gas giant
A planet about 734 light-years away could be a former gas giant that lost its atmosphere or a failed giant that never finished growing.
- Climate
4 ways to put the 100-degree Arctic heat record in context
June’s record heat in Siberia is part of a much bigger picture of dramatic climate change in the Arctic.
- Science & Society
The U.S. largely wasted time bought by COVID-19 lockdowns. Now what?
As states reopen, most don’t have adequate systems in place to test, trace and isolate new COVID-19 cases, setting the stage for future outbreaks.
- Health & Medicine
Here’s what we’ve learned in six months of COVID-19 — and what we still don’t know
Six months into the new coronavirus pandemic, researchers have raced to uncover crucial information about SARS-CoV-2. But much is still unknown.
- Life
Here’s how flying snakes stay aloft
High-speed cameras show that paradise tree snakes keep from tumbling as they glide through the sky by undulating their bodies.
- Life
Fish eggs can hatch after being eaten and pooped out by ducks
In the lab, a few carp eggs survived and even hatched after being pooped out by ducks. The finding may help explain how fish reach isolated waterways.
- Psychology
Monkeys may share a key grammar-related skill with humans
A contested study suggests the ability to embed sequences within other sequences, a skill called recursion and crucial to grammar, has ancient roots.
- Health & Medicine
Why scientists say wearing masks shouldn’t be controversial
New data suggest that cloth masks work to reduce coronavirus cases, though less well than medical masks.
