News

  1. Astronomy

    How a 19th century astronomer can help you watch the total solar eclipse

    Astronomer Maria Mitchell’s observations of total solar eclipses from more than 100 years ago hold tips that are still relevant for watching an eclipse.

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  2. Health & Medicine

    Bird flu has infected a person after spreading to cows. Here’s what to know

    H5N1 has wreaked havoc on birds around the globe and occasionally made the jump to mammals, including cows. The risk to people remains low.

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  3. Health & Medicine

    A new study has linked microplastics to heart attacks and strokes. Here’s what we know 

    Patients with microplastics in their arteries were 4.5 times more likely to have a heart attack, stroke or die within the next three years.

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  4. Life

    During a total solar eclipse, some colors really pop. Here’s why

    As a solar eclipse approaches totality and our eyes adjust to dimming light, our color vision changes. It’s called the Purkinje effect.

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  5. Genetics

    Here’s why some pigeons do backflips

    Meet the scientist homing in on the genes involved in making parlor roller pigeons do backward somersaults.

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  6. Neuroscience

    Chickadees use memory ‘bar codes’ to find their hidden food stashes

    Unique subsets of neurons in a chickadee’s memory center light up for each distinct cache, hinting at how episodic memories are encoded in the brain.

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  7. Neuroscience

    Here’s how magnetic fields shape desert ants’ brains

    Exposure to a tweaked magnetic field scrambled desert ants’ efforts to learn where home is — and affected neuron connections in a key part of the brain.

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  8. Earth

    Earth’s oldest known earthquake was probably triggered by plate tectonics

    Billion-year-old rocks in South Africa hold evidence for the onset of plate tectonics early in Earth’s history.

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  9. Earth

    Climate change is changing how we keep time

    Polar ice sheets are melting faster, slowing Earth’s spin. That is changing how we synchronize our clocks to tell time.

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  10. Space

    A new image reveals magnetic fields around our galaxy’s central black hole

    Astronomers have captured polarized light coming from the Milky Way’s central supermassive black hole, giving insight into its magnetic fields.

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  11. Physics

    A teeny device can measure subtle shifts in Earth’s gravitational field

    No bigger than a grain of rice, the heart of the instrument is the latest entrant in the quest to build ever tinier gravity-measuring devices.

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  12. Paleontology

    An extinct sofa-sized turtle may have lived alongside humans

    Peltocephalus maturin was one of the biggest turtles ever, but unlike similarly sized prehistoric freshwater turtles, it lived thousands of years ago.

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