All Stories by Meghan Rosen
- Life
Grizzly bears master healthy obesity
Tuned insulin signals explain how grizzly bears can fatten up for hibernation in the winter without developing diabetes.
- Math
Father-son mathematicians fold math into fonts
MIT’s Erik and Martin Demaine create puzzle typefaces to test new ideas.
- Planetary Science
NASA bets on asteroid mission as best path to Mars
NASA wants to bag an asteroid using robotic arms or an enormous sack and place the rock in the moon’s orbit for study. This may keep astronauts working but not, as NASA claims, get them Mars-ready.
- Tech
Robots start flat, then pop into shape and crawl
The machines use heated hinges to transform into shape and crawl around.
- Paleontology
Dinosaurs shrank continually into birds
Steady miniaturization and rapidly changing skeletons transformed massive animals into today’s fliers.
- Tech
With two robotic fingers, humans get a helping hand
Mechanical fingers grasp like the real thing.
- Paleontology
Feathered dinosaurs may have been the rule, not the exception
Newly discovered fossil suggests feathers may have been common among all dinosaur species.
- Tech
Wax-coated plastic morphs between soft and stiff
Heat-controlled materials could serve as skeleton for shape-shifting robots.
- Paleontology
Baby mammoths died traumatic deaths
CT scans show that two young mammoths probably suffocated.
- Paleontology
Duck-billed dinosaurs roamed the Arctic in herds
Young and old duck-billed dinosaurs lived together in herds in the Arctic, tracks preserved in Alaska indicate.
- Earth
Oklahoma earthquakes triggered by wastewater injection
Dumping wastewater from the oil and gas industry into disposal wells may have set off swarm of earthquakes in Oklahoma.
- Astronomy
Magnetic bubbles could shield astronauts from radiation
With help from plasma and a magnet, solar storms' dangers would lessen on long space trips.
