Science & Society
How materials science has changed humankind — for better and worse
As people began wielding new materials, the technologies fundamentally changed humankind, the new book ‘The Alchemy of Us’ argues.
Featured Articles in this Issue
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Cover Story
Insects’ extreme farming methods offer us lessons to learn and oddities to avoid
Insects invented agriculture long before humans did. Can we learn anything from them?
Reviews & Previews
Science Visualized
Health & Medicine
Here’s where bacteria live on your tongue cells
Scientists labeled bacteria from tongue scrapings with fluorescent probes to glimpse at how the microbes structure their communities.
Notebook
Climate
These women endured a winter in the high Arctic for citizen science
Two women have spent the winter on the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard to collect data for climate scientists around the world.
Features
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It’s time to stop debating how to teach kids to read and follow the evidence
Most children need help learning to read, but there’s long-standing disagreement on how best to help them. Decades of research have identified the most effective approaches.
More Stories from the April 25, 2020 issue
- Health & Medicine
The number of steps per day, not speed, is linked to mortality rate
Researchers report an association between the total number of steps a person takes each day and the rate of death from any cause.
- Paleontology
Fossils of a new dromaeosaur date to the end of the Age of Dinosaurs
Fossils from a new dromaeosaur recovered from New Mexico suggest these fierce predators were diversifying up to the end of the Age of Dinosaurs.
- Environment
Legos may take hundreds of years to break down in the ocean
Sturdy types of plastic may persist in seawater for much long than scientists previously thought.
- Math
How large a gathering is too large during the coronavirus pandemic?
Mathematical models explain why large gatherings are especially dangerous in an epidemic, and identify how large is too large.
- Planetary Science
If Pluto has a subsurface ocean, it may be old and deep
New analyses of images from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft suggest that Pluto may have had a sea beneath its icy shell for roughly 4.5 billion years.
- Space
Quasar winds with record energy levels were seen fleeing a distant galaxy
The Hubble Space Telescope has seen the most energetic quasar winds yet, showing these active black holes can blow star-forming gas out of galaxies.
- Physics
A mysterious superconductor’s wave could reveal the physics behind the materials
Scientists finally spotted a pair-density wave in a high-temperature superconductor.
- Genetics
Squid edit their genetic material in a uniquely weird place
Some squids’ seeming ability to edit RNA on the fly could help scientists develop a technique much like the DNA-editing tool CRISPR, but for RNA.
- Health & Medicine
A tooth-enamel protein is found in eyes with a common form of macular degeneration
Researchers linked a tooth-enamel protein with calcium deposits in eyes suffering ‘dry’ AMD, which could lead to treatments for the vision disorder.
- Archaeology
Neandertals’ extensive seafood menu rivals that of ancient humans
Finds from a coastal cave in Portugal reveal repeated ocean foraging for this European hominid.
- Archaeology
The Nazareth Inscription’s origins may refute ties to Jesus’ resurrection
Chemical analysis shows the tablet’s marble came from a Greek island, challenging the idea the decree concerned early Christianity in the Middle East.
- Earth
Roughly 90 million years ago, a rainforest grew near the South Pole
A forest flourished within 1,000 kilometers of the South Pole, probably because of high atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and an ice-free Antarctica.
- Neuroscience
‘The Idea of the Brain’ explores the evolution of neuroscience
Despite advances, much about the human brain is still a mystery, a new book shows
- Physics
50 years ago, superconductors started feeling the pressure
Today, high-pressure superconductors are a hot topic. 50 years ago, scientists were just starting to explore the possibilities.
