All Stories
- Health & Medicine
The brain’s response to a heart attack may worsen recovery
In mice, blocking heart-to-brain signals improved healing after a heart attack, hinting at new targets for cardiac therapy.
- Animals
Spider silk-making organs evolved due to a 400-million-year-old genetic oops
An ancient ancestor of spiders and relatives doubled its genome about 400 million years ago, setting the stage for the evolution of spinnerets.
- Archaeology
This ancient stick may be the world’s oldest handheld wooden tool
These 430,000-year-old wooden tools from Greece are a rare find and provide a glimpse at the technical know-how of our early human ancestors.
- Animals
Some vaccines are making progress in protecting vulnerable species
Vaccines can be a crucial conservation tool. But getting shots to wildlife, and developing them in the first place, is tough.
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The inner lives of animals
Editor in Chief Nancy Shute discusses how scientists are beginning to study animals’ emotions and personalities — from joy to individual temperament.
- Animals
How Greenland sharks defy aging
When it comes to bucking the biological ails of aging, humans could learn something from Greenland sharks.
- Health & Medicine
It masquerades as malignant. But this bone-covered tumor is benign
Scientists have described a novel, yet benign bone-covered growth's characteristics for doctors, so patients don't receive unnecessary chemotherapy.
- Physics
Physics theories about the multiverse are stranger than fiction
Cosmology and quantum physics both offer tantalizing possibilities that we inhabit just one reality among many. But testing that idea is challenging.
- Space
Seismometers can track falling space junk
As the threat of falling spacecraft increases, using earthquake sensors to detect the effects of their sonic booms could better map trajectories.
- Neuroscience
A spot in the base of the brain has a love of language
Brain scans show a spot in the cerebellum attuned specifically to words, expanding on studies that point to the region's importance for language.
- Animals
Animals experience joy. Scientists want to measure it
Scientists have long focused on quantifying fear and other negative emotions in animals. Now they’re trying to measure positive feelings — and it’s a challenge.
- Cosmology
A massive cosmic ring may challenge a key assumption about the universe
At 3.3 billion light-years across, the ring may challenge the “cosmological principle” that the universe looks uniform at sufficiently large scales.
