Uncategorized
- Climate
A global warming pause that didn’t happen hampered climate science
Trying to explain why global warming appeared to slow down in the early 2000s distracted scientists and shook their confidence.
- Humans
Where you grew up may shape your navigational skills
People raised in cities with simple, gridlike layouts were worse at navigating in a video game designed for studying the brain.
- Astronomy
When the Magellanic Clouds cozy up to each other, stars are born
The Magellanic Clouds, the two closest star-making galaxies to the Milky Way, owe much of their stellar creativity to each other.
- Genetics
We finally have a fully complete human genome
Finding the missing 8 percent of the human genome gives researchers a more powerful tool to better understand human health, disease and evolution.
- Paleontology
Mammals’ bodies outpaced their brains right after the dinosaurs died
Fossils show that mammals’ brains and bodies did not balloon together. The animals’ brains grew bigger later.
- Science & Society
Here are the Top 10 times scientific imagination failed
Some scientists of the past couldn’t imagine that atoms or gravity waves could one day be studied – or nuclear energy harnessed.
- Anthropology
North America’s oldest skull surgery dates to at least 3,000 years ago
Bone regrowth suggests the man, who lived in what’s now Alabama, survived a procedure to treat brain swelling by scraping a hole out of his forehead.
- Microbes
New images reveal details of two bacteria’s molecular syringes
It’s unclear exactly how these species use their tiny injectors, but learning how they work could lead to nanodevices that target specific bacteria.
- Animals
Invasive jorō spiders get huge and flashy — if they’re female
Taking the pulse (literally) of female jorō spiders hints that the arachnid might push farther north than a relative that has stayed put in the South.
- Animals
How scientists found an African bat lost to science for 40 years
African researchers had been searching for the Hill’s horseshoe bat since 2013. Now, the first recording of its echolocation call may help find more.
- Health & Medicine
‘Vagina Obscura’ shows how little is known about female biology
The new book ‘Vagina Obscura’ chronicles how scientists are finally giving female health and anatomy proper attention.
- Climate
Wally Broecker divined how the climate could suddenly shift
Wally Broecker’s insight into the shutdown of the great ocean conveyor belt spurred the study of abrupt climate change.
