News
- Animals
Cockatoos can tell when they need more than one tool to swipe a snack
Cockatoos know when it will take a stick and a straw to nab a nut in a puzzle box. The birds join chimps as the only known nonhumans to use a tool kit.
- Paleontology
This dinosaur might have used its feet to snag prey in midair like modern hawks
Fossilized toe pads suggest a hawklike hunting style in Microraptor, a dinosaur that some scientists think could hunt while flying.
- Paleontology
In the wake of history’s deadliest mass extinction, ocean life may have flourished
Ocean life may have recovered in just a million years after the Permian-Triassic mass extinction, fossils from South China suggest.
- Anthropology
Hominids used stone tool kits to butcher animals earlier than once thought
Finds in Kenya push Oldowan tool use back to around 2.9 million years ago, roughly 300,000 years earlier than previous evidence.
- Life
Orca moms baby their adult sons. That favoritism pays off — eventually
By sharing fish with their adult sons, orca moms may skimp on nutrition, cutting their chances of more offspring but boosting the odds for grandwhales.
- Health & Medicine
How fingerprints form was a mystery — until now
A theory proposed by British mathematician Alan Turing in the 1950s helps explain how fingerprint patterns such as arches and whorls arise.
- Astronomy
The Kuiper Belt’s dwarf planet Quaoar hosts an impossible ring
Quaoar’s ring lies outside the Roche limit, an imaginary line beyond which rings aren’t thought to be stable.
- Microbes
Some ‘friendly’ bacteria backstab their algal pals. Now we know why
The friendly relationship between Emiliana huxleyi and Roseobacter turns deadly when the bacteria get a whiff of the algae’s aging-related chemicals.
- Physics
Physicists stored data in quantum holograms made of twisted light
Light that travels in corkscrew-like paths provides a way to make holograms that store large amounts of data in ultrasecure packages.
- Life
Mammals that live in groups may live longer, longevity research suggests
An analysis of nearly 1,000 mammal species reveals that the evolution of mammals’ social lives and life spans could be linked.
- Earth
What to know about Turkey’s recent devastating earthquake
Science News spoke with U.S. Geological Survey seismologist Susan Hough about the fatal February 6 earthquake near the Turkey-Syria border
- Animals
Fish can recognize themselves in photos, further evidence they may be self-aware
Cleaner fish recognize themselves in mirrors and photos, suggesting that far more animals may be self-aware than previously thought.
