News
- Life
Hey kitty, dogs drink like cats
High-speed video shows that canines don’t simply scoop up water, they toss it into their mouths just like their feline frenemies.
By Susan Milius - Physics
Gators go a-courtin’ with fancy physics
Their subsonic mating bellows generate Faraday waves, a phenomenon almost never seen outside the lab.
By Devin Powell - Earth
Germy with a chance of hail
Aerial microbes can trigger precipitation and may influence global warming.
By Janet Raloff - Chemistry
Natural pain-killing chemical synthesized
Conolidine — a headache to isolate from the plant that makes it — can now be produced from scratch in the lab, opening the promising compound to study.
- Life
Tarantulas shoot silk from their feet
The unique ability may give the heavy spiders a better grip and prevent deadly falls.
By Susan Milius - Psychology
Geometric minds skip school
Villagers' understanding of lines and triangles raises questions about how people learn the properties of objects in space.
By Bruce Bower - Life
Suspect bacterium may trigger Parkinson’s
A study in mice shows that H. pylori, the microbe that causes stomach ulcers, may also affect the brain.
- Physics
Rogue waves captured
Re-creating tiny versions of these monster swells in a laboratory tank reveals their mathematical underpinnings.
By Devin Powell - Health & Medicine
Don’t share that clarinet
Bacteria can linger on woodwind instruments, particularly those with reeds, for days, a new study finds.
By Nathan Seppa - Space
Milky Way may get an extension
A newly discovered feature at its fringes suggests the galaxy is an uncommon beauty: One half appears to be nearly a mirror image of the other.
By Ron Cowen - Life
Your gut microbes are what you eat
A mammal's diet strongly influences what kinds of microorganisms live in its intestines.
- Psychology
Eyes take gossip to heart
Reading negative gossip about someone makes that person’s face easier to perceive.
By Bruce Bower