Notebook
- Animals
To zip through water, swordfish reduce drag
A newly discovered oil-producing organ inside the swordfish’s head gives the animal slick skin to swim faster.
- Physics
Sounds from gunshots may help solve crimes
Sound wave analysis may help forensic scientists figure out what types of guns were fired at a crime scene.
- Materials Science
Shark jelly is strong proton conductor
A jelly found in sharks and skates, which helps them sense electric fields, is a strong proton conductor.
- Animals
Two newly identified dinosaurs donned weird horns
Two newly discovered relatives of Triceratops had unusual head adornments — even for horned dinosaurs.
- Planetary Science
Earth has a tiny tagalong, and no, it’s not a moon
Asteroid 2016 HO3 is a quasisatellite of Earth — orbiting the sun while never wandering far from our planet.
- Archaeology
Ancient Europeans may have been first wine makers
A new chemical analysis uncovers the earliest known wine making in Europe.
- Planetary Science
Ancient meteorite granules still mystify scientists
Shock waves might have formed the oldest solid fragments in the solar system, though interplanetary lightning isn’t entirely off the table.
- Oceans
Coral bleaching event is longest on record
Widespread coral bleaching continues, in the longest episode, over the largest area to date.
- Microbes
Thaw tests turn up dicey bagged ice
Tests of bagged ice found that 19 percent exceeded recommended thresholds for bacterial contamination.
- Planetary Science
Long-lost ‘extinct’ meteorite found
A newly discovered meteorite, nicknamed Öst 65, may have originated from the same collision that formed L chondrites, one of the most abundant groups of meteorites on Earth.
- Chemistry
Movie viewers’ exhaled chemicals tell if scene is funny, scary
Changes in trace gases exhaled by movie audiences could point the way to a subtle form of human communication.
- Plants
Scary tomato appears to bleed
A new species of Australian bush tomato bleeds when injured and turns bony in old age.
