Science Visualized

Health & Medicine

Air pollution is shaving a year off our average life expectancy

The first country-by-country look at how dirty air affects when we die shows it can have more impact on mortality than breast or lung cancer.

Neuroscience

This colorful web is the most complete look yet at a fruit fly’s brain cells

Scientists compiled 21 million images to craft the highest-resolution view yet of the fruit fly brain.

Astronomy

See this star nursery shine in a stunning new infrared image

A newly released image of star cluster RCW 38 shows the intricate details of wisps of gas and dust surrounding newborn stars.

Chemistry

How a particle accelerator helped recover tarnished 19th century images

Chemists used a synchrotron to peek beneath 150 years of grime on damaged daguerreotype images, revealing hidden portraits.

Earth

Here’s a look at the world’s deadliest volcanoes — and the ways they kill

Scientists gathered data on nearly 280,000 global volcano deaths from 1500 to 2017 and sorted fatalities by cause of death, such as lava flows or gas.

Planetary Science

Satellite smashups could have given birth to Saturn’s odd moons

Nearly head-on collisions between icy moonlets might be responsible for the peculiar shapes of some of Saturn’s moons, computer simulations suggest.

Paleontology

Here’s how hefty dinosaurs sat on their eggs without crushing them

Some heavier dinos had a strategy to keep eggs warm without crushing them: sit in an opening in the middle of the clutch instead of on top of them.

Animals

See (and hear) the stunning diversity of bowhead whales’ songs

Bowhead whales display a huge range in their underwater melodies, but the drivers behind this diversity remain murky.

Science & Society

Closing the gender gap in some science fields may take over 100 years

In some STEM fields, the gender gap won’t disappear for decades or even centuries, a new study suggests.

Planetary Science

This spinning moon shows where debris from giant impacts fell

A new map shows that light-colored lunar plains point back to huge impact basins, raising questions about the age and history of the moon.

Life

Meet the giants among viruses

For decades, all viruses were thought to be small and simple. But the discovery of more and more giant viruses shows that’s not the case.

Earth

New mapping shows just how much fishing impacts the world’s seas

Industrial fishing now occurs across 55 percent of the world’s ocean area while only 34 percent of Earth’s land area is used for agriculture or grazing.