News
- Genetics
What FamilyTreeDNA sharing genetic data with police means for you
Law enforcement can now use one company’s private DNA database to investigate rapes and murders.
- Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence is learning not to be so literal
Artificial intelligence is learning how to take things not so literally.
- Astronomy
A space rock collision may explain how this exoplanet was born
Simulations suggest a planet roughly 2,000 light-years away formed when two space rocks collided, supporting the idea that such events are universal.
- Humans
Why it’s key to identify preschoolers with anxiety and depression
With mounting evidence that very young children can experience anxiety and depression, efforts are underway to identify and treat them early.
- Humans
Here’s what makes satire so funny, according to science
Analysis of headlines from the satirical newspaper The Onion could help you — or a computer — write humorous news headlines.
- Physics
Lasers could send messages right to a listener’s ear
Communication in noisy environments or dangerous situations could one day rely on lasers.
- Planetary Science
Titan’s oddly thick atmosphere may come from cooked organic compounds
Saturn’s moon Titan might get some of its hazy atmosphere by baking organic molecules in a warm core.
- Climate
Climate change might not slow ocean circulation as much as thought
New measurements may call for a rethink of what controls ocean circulation in the North Atlantic.
- Planetary Science
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover weighed the mountain it’s climbing
Curiosity measures gravity as it drives, allowing scientists to weigh Mount Sharp and determine that the rock is less dense than expected.
- Genetics
This bacteria-fighting protein also induces sleep
A bacteria-fighting protein also lulls fruit flies to sleep, suggesting links between sleep and the immune system.
- Animals
Giant pandas may have only recently switched to eating mostly bamboo
Giant pandas may have switched to an exclusive bamboo diet some 5,000 years ago, not 2 million years ago as previously thought.
- Neuroscience
No, we don’t know that gum disease causes Alzheimer’s
A recent study linked gum disease and Alzheimer’s disease, but the results are far from conclusive.
