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  1. Climate

    A little drier every day

    The Sahara, one of the hottest and driest regions on Earth, gradually became arid over a period of centuries, a finding that contradicts many previous studies.

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  2. Life

    Risky nests

    Invasive species misleads birds picking a home.

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  3. Space

    A new look at the gamma-ray sky

    Explosions pouring out as much energy in seconds as the sun does in its entire lifetime. Invisible beams of radiation sweeping across the sky like giant searchlights. Supermassive black holes emitting powerful and highly variable jets of radiation. GAMMA GLOW Simulation of the high-energy sky that will be seen by GLAST. Sonoma State, NASA The […]

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  4. Health & Medicine

    Glucose galore

    Pregnant women with elevated blood sugar are more likely to have oversized babies, posing a risk to mother and newborn.

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  5. Math

    Less is more

    Researchers have shown that a grip that’s too tight can be counterproductive, especially on a microscopic object — but the findings could apply to fields ranging from ecology to sociology.

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  6. Space

    Flooring the cosmic accelerator

    If cosmologist Will Percival of the University of Portsmouth in England is right, the universe will end about 60 billion years from now, when every molecule and atom will be torn asunder by a mysterious entity that opposes gravity’s pull and turns it into a cosmic push.

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  7. Ecosystems

    Bring in the replacements

    Missing links in ecosystems disrupted by extinctions could be restored by introducing species that perform the same function, new field experiments suggest.

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  8. Health & Medicine

    Leaving a mark

    Child abuse may leave chemical marks on the brains of people who later kill themselves.

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  9. Life

    Brittle arms lose muscle

    In lab simulations of future ocean conditions, brittle stars grow extra-calcified but puny arms.

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  10. Health & Medicine

    Stub it out

    Quitting cigarettes shows health benefits even decades after the last puff.

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  11. Humans

    Teeth chronicle infant diet

    Chemical analyses of teeth, including fossilized ones, may provide clues that tell anthropologists the age at which a child was weaned.

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  12. Physics

    Gödel, Escher, Chopin

    Musical theorists see inuitive links between musical chords and geometries.

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