News
- Animals
Counting the breaths of wild porpoises reveals their revved-up metabolism
A new method tracks harbor porpoises’ breathing to collect rare information on the energy needs of the marine mammals.
By Susan Milius - Neuroscience
Big data reveals hints of how, when and where mental disorders start
The first wave of data from the PsychENCODE project holds new clues to how and when psychiatric diseases such as schizophrenia emerge.
- Archaeology
Corn domestication took some unexpected twists and turns
A DNA study challenges the idea people fully tamed maize in Mexico before the plant spread.
By Bruce Bower - Plants
Hybrid rice engineered with CRISPR can clone its seeds
New research has created self-cloning hybrid rice, raising hopes of higher food production.
By Susan Milius - Health & Medicine
Babies born in opioid withdrawal have unusually small heads
Infants born dependent on opioids had heads that were smaller than babies whose moms didn’t use the drugs during pregnancy.
- Humans
‘Little Foot’ skeleton analysis reignites debate over the hominid’s species
Long-awaited analyses of the Little Foot skeleton have researchers disagreeing over resurrecting a defunct species name.
By Bruce Bower - Earth
Here’s what was surprising about Kilauea’s 3-month-long eruption
Researchers revealed new insight into the Hawaiian volcano’s most recent eruption.
- Tech
A new way to turn saltwater fresh can kill germs and avoid gunk buildup
A new device that harnesses sunlight to produce pure vapor from seawater could last longer and produce cleaner water than other technology.
- Climate
The list of extreme weather caused by human-driven climate change grows
The tally of extreme weather events linked to climate change continues to grow, with new studies outlining links to more than a dozen events in 2017.
- Planetary Science
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx finds signs of water on the asteroid Bennu
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft found signs of water and lots of boulders on the asteroid Bennu.
- Cosmology
Voyager 2 spacecraft enters interstellar space
Voyager 2 just became the second probe ever to enter interstellar space, and the first with a working plasma instrument.
- Neuroscience
The uterus may play a role in memory
In lab tests, rats that underwent hysterectomies had worse spatial memories.