Ashley Yeager is the associate news editor at Science News. Previously, she worked at The Scientist, where she was an associate editor for nearly three years. She has also worked as a freelance editor and writer, and as a writer at the Simons Foundation, Duke University and the W.M. Keck Observatory. She was the web producer for Science News from 2013 to 2015, and was an intern at the magazine in the summer of 2008. She holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and a master’s degree in science writing from MIT. Her book, Bright Galaxies, Dark Matter and Beyond, on the life of astronomer Vera Rubin, will be published by MIT Press in August.
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All Stories by Ashley Yeager
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Plants
Milkweed ‘horns’ may equal wins in reproduction battle
Plants may be ripping a page right from bucks’ playbooks, developing hornlike weapons to improve their chances of reproduction.
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Planetary Science
How Earth’s radiation belt gets its ‘stripes’
The rotation of the Earth may give the planet's inner radiation belt its zebralike stripes.
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Paleontology
The dinosaur ‘chicken from hell’
Fossils suggest that a supersized chickenlike reptile called Anzu wyliei roamed what are now the Dakotas roughly 67 million years ago.
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Animals
Owl monkeys’ fidelity linked to males’ quality of parenting
The evolution of animals’ sexual fidelity is probably linked to the intensity of male care, the researchers suggest.
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Astronomy
Sun’s ejections collide to create extreme space storm
In July 2012, the sun shot off streams of charged particles and magnetic fields that collided to create a record-setting space storm.
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Psychology
Newborns seem to relate space, time and numbers
Newborns zero to three days old seem to have the ability to relate the concepts of space, time and numbers of objects.
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Plants
Moss still grows after 1,500-year deep freeze
After incubating slices of moss that have been frozen for 1,500 years, the plants began to grow again.
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Cosmology
First images of gravity waves, evidence of cosmic inflation reported
The first images of gravitational waves and the first direct evidence for cosmic inflation were announced March 17.
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Psychology
How string quartets stay together
New data tracking millisecond-scale corrections suggests that some ensembles are more autocratic — following one leader —while other musical groups are more democratic, making corrections equally.
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Life
Protein linked to motor nerve cells being fast or slow
The protein, Delta-like homolog 1, is made in 30 percent of motor neurons and helps to determine at which speed the cells work, research shows.
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Health & Medicine
Imbalance in gut bacteria may play role in Crohn’s disease
Identifying the onset of Crohn’s disease may best be done by looking at bacteria in the cellular linings intestinal tissue.
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Paleontology
Fossil whale skull hints at echolocation’s origins
Ancestors of toothed whales used echolocation as early as 34 million years ago, analysis of a new fossil skull suggests.