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Debate over Pluto’s planet status still carries on
Managing editor Erin Wayman discusses the challenges of classification in science, from Pluto's planet status to the definition of life.
- Physics
50 years ago, physicists thought they found the W boson. They hadn’t
Fifty years after a false-alarm discovery, physicists have caught the W boson and are using it to unravel mysteries of particle physics.
- Paleontology
How fossilization preserved a 310-million-year-old horseshoe crab’s brain
A 310-million-year-old horseshoe crab’s brain was preserved in clay, thanks to an uncommon fossilization process that protected the fragile neural tissues.
- Psychology
‘Ghost games’ spotlight the psychological effect fans have on referees
Soccer teams won fewer games and received more fouls when playing at home during the 2019–2020 season, when many fans were absent, than before the pandemic.
- Animals
These baby greater sac-winged bats babble to learn their mating songs
Greater sac-winged bat pups babble their way through learning their rich vocal repertoire, similar to how human infants babble before speaking.
- Health & Medicine
How coronavirus vaccines still help people who already had COVID-19
Coronavirus vaccines give the immune system of previously infected people a boost, probably giving those people better protection against new variants.
- Planetary Science
See some of the most intriguing photos from NASA’s Perseverance rover so far
Six months ago, Perseverance landed on the Red Planet. Here’s what the rover has been observing.
- Physics
With a powerful laser blast, scientists near a nuclear fusion milestone
A National Ignition Facility experiment spawned nuclear fusion reactions that released nearly as much energy as was used to ignite them.
- Earth
Haiti’s citizen seismologists helped track its devastating quake in real time
Two scientists explain how citizen scientists and their work could help provide a better understanding of Haiti’s seismic hazards.
- Science & Society
How extreme heat from climate change distorts human behavior
As temperatures rise, violence and aggression go up while focus and productivity decline. The well off can escape to cool spaces; the poor cannot.
- Plants
A well-known wildflower turns out to be a secret carnivore
A species of false asphodel wildflower snags prey with gluey, enzyme-secreting hairs, leaving a trail of insect corpses on its flowering stem.
- Health & Medicine
New studies hint that the coronavirus may be evolving to become more airborne
More coronavirus RNA is in fine aerosols than in larger droplets, but masks can reduce the amount of virus in the air.
