News
- Science & Society
Past plagues offer lessons for society after the coronavirus pandemic
Starting with the Roman Empire, societies have often dealt resiliently with deadly pandemics.
- Paleontology
Saber-toothed anchovy relatives hunted in the sea 50 million years ago
Unlike today’s plankton-eating anchovies with tiny teeth, ancient anchovy kin had lower jaw of sharp spikes paired with a single giant sabertooth.
- Health & Medicine
T cells may help COVID-19 patients — and people never exposed to the virus
Researchers found certain immune cells that help the body fight off an infection in the blood of people who recovered from a coronavirus infection.
- Chemistry
Moisture, not light, explains why Munch’s ‘The Scream’ is deteriorating
Edvard Munch’s 1910 “The Scream” is famous for its loud colors. New insight into paint preservation could keep those pigments from fading out.
- Humans
Malaria parasites may have their own circadian rhythms
Plasmodium parasites don’t depend on a host for an internal clock, studies suggest.
- Earth
Long-dormant volcano Mauna Kea has been quietly grumbling for decades
Small, periodic earthquakes have happened every seven to 12 minutes for decades, but aren’t reason for alarm, a new study finds.
- Anthropology
Africa’s biggest collection of ancient human footprints has been found
Preserved impressions in East Africa offer a glimpse of ancient human behavior.
- Neuroscience
Blind people can ‘see’ letters traced directly onto their brains
Arrays of electrodes can trace shapes onto people’s brains, creating bursts of light that people can “see.”
- Health & Medicine
How fear and anger change our perception of coronavirus risk
Americans are weighing whether to return to society. Behavioral scientist Jennifer Lerner discusses how emotions drive those decisions.
- Tech
Wiggling wheels could keep future rovers trucking in loose lunar soil
A rover that wriggles through soil could climb hills on the moon or Mars that are too steep for a simple wheeled bot.
- Genetics
New hybrid embryos are the most thorough mixing of humans and mice yet
Human-mice chimeras may usher in a deeper understanding of how cells build bodies.
- Humans
A gene variant partly explains why Peruvians are among the world’s shortest people
A gene variant reduces some Peruvians’ height by about 2 centimeters, on average, the biggest effect on stature found for a common variation in DNA.
