News
- Life
Earwigs take origami to extremes to fold their wings
Stretchy joints let earwig wings flip quickly between folded and unfurled.
- Earth
False alarms may be a necessary part of earthquake early warnings
To give enough time to take protective action, earthquake warning systems may have to issue alerts long before it’s clear how strong the quake will be.
- Health & Medicine
Male birth control pill passes a safety test
A prototype contraceptive for men safely reduced testosterone and other reproductive hormones during a month-long treatment.
- Planetary Science
5 things we’ve learned about Saturn since Cassini died
The Cassini spacecraft plunged to its death into Saturn six months ago, but the discoveries keep coming.
- Health & Medicine
How obesity makes it harder to taste
Mice that gained excessive weight on a high-fat diet also lost a quarter of their taste buds.
- Planetary Science
Some TRAPPIST-1 planets may be water worlds
Two of TRAPPIST-1’s planets are half water and ice, which could hamper the search for life.
- Climate
Tree rings tell tale of drought in Mongolia over the last 2,000 years
Semifossilized trees preserved in Mongolia contain a 2,000-year climate record that could help predict future droughts.
- Astronomy
Astronomers can’t figure out why some black holes got so big so fast
Early supermassive black holes are challenging astronomers’ ideas about how the behemoths grew so quickly.
- Anthropology
Ancient climate shifts may have sparked human ingenuity and networking
Stone tools signal rise of social networking by 320,000 years ago in East Africa, researchers argue.
- Planetary Science
Dwarf planet Ceres may store underground brine that still gushes up today
Waterlogged minerals and changing ice add to evidence that Ceres is geologically active.
- Neuroscience
Brain waves may focus attention and keep information flowing
Not just by-products of busy nerve cells, brain waves may be key to how the brain operates.
- Animals
Dino-bird had wings made for flapping, not just gliding
Archaeopteryx fossils suggest the dino-birds were capable of flapping their wings in flight.
