Animals
‘The Cultural Lives of Whales and Dolphins’ offers window into cetacean societies
Dolphins and whales pass cultural knowledge to one another, the authors of a new book argue.
Reviews & Previews
Science Visualized
Environment
A coast-to-coast picture of America’s cacophony of sounds
The National Park Service mapped noise across the United States.
Notebook
Animals
‘Bag of chips effect’ helps bats find a meal
Bats get a clue to where dinner is by listening to peers attacking prey.
Features
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Adults with autism are left to navigate a jarring world
Researchers are beginning to study ways to help adults with autism navigate independently, get jobs and find friendship.
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Noise made by humans can be bad news for animals
Animals live in a world of sounds. Clever experiments are finally teasing out how human-made noise can cause dangerous distractions.
More Stories from the February 21, 2015 issue
- Animals
Earth’s magnetic field guides sea turtles home
Over 19 years, geomagnetic fields changed slightly and so did loggerheads’ nesting sites.
- Life
In battle to shape immunity, environment often beats genes
The environment, especially microbes, shapes immune system reactions more than genes do.
- Physics
Speed of light not so constant after all
Even in vacuum conditions, light can move slower than its maximum speed depending on the structure of its pulses.
- Animals
Cone snail deploys insulin to slow speedy prey
Fish-hunting cone snails turns insulin into a weapon that drops their prey’s blood sugar and eases capture.
- Neuroscience
Newly identified brain circuit hints at how fear memories are made
A newfound set of brain connections appears to control fear memories, a finding that may lead to a better understanding of PTSD and other anxiety disorders.
- Planetary Science
Young asteroids generated long-lasting magnetism
Pockets of iron and nickel in meteorites suggest that asteroids in the early solar system produced magnetic fields for much longer than once thought.
- Neuroscience
Brain’s protective barrier gets leakier with age
Aging influences the breakdown of the blood-brain barrier, which may contribute to learning and memory problems later in life.
- Genetics
Scientists find new way to corral genetically engineered bacteria
Engineering E. coli to depend on human-made molecules may keep genetically modified bacteria from escaping into nature.
- Life
When bacteria-killing viruses take over, it’s bad news for the gut
A rise in some bacteria-killing viruses in the intestines may deplete good bacteria and trigger inflammatory bowel diseases.
- Anthropology
Scans tell gripping tale of possible ancient tool use
South African fossils contain inner signs of humanlike hands, indicating possible tool use nearly 3 million years ago.
- Planetary Science
Rosetta reveals a complex comet
Rosetta finds diverse landscapes on comet 67P, which could provide researchers with clues about how the solar system formed.
- Chemistry
Sodium and other alkali explosions finally explained
A high-speed camera snaps sharp details of how alkali metals explode in water — a classic, but until now, not fully explained chemical reaction.
- Paleontology
Snakes crawled among Jurassic dinosaurs, new timeline says
Earliest snake fossils provide evidence snakes evolved their flexible skulls before their long, limbless bodies.
- Anthropology
Israeli fossil may recast history of first Europeans
New find suggests humans mated with Neandertals in Middle East before taking on Europe.
- Astronomy
Oldest solar system unearthed by Kepler
Five rocky planets orbit the 11.2-billion-year-old star Kepler 444, suggesting that Earth-sized worlds formed in the early universe.
- Cosmology
Dust erases evidence for gravity wave detection
The claimed detection of primordial gravitational waves does not hold up after taking into account galactic dust, a new analysis concludes.
- Physics
When entering a black hole, fasten your seat belt
Rapidly spinning black holes can generate turbulence, a new analysis shows.
- Anthropology
Ancient Maya bookmakers get paged in Guatemala
New discoveries peg ritual specialists as force behind bark-paper tomes and wall murals.
- Plants
Fairly bad pitcher traps triumph in the end
Carnivorous pitcher plant traps rarely catch much, but their lackadaisical hunting turns out not to be so lame after all.
- Science & Society
U.S. research workforce lags by some measures
Scientists’ share of total employment is lower in United States than in 16 other countries.
- Health & Medicine
Fallout from nuclear bomb testing presaged today’s radioactive tracers
Scientists in 1965 measured buildup of radioactive carbon from nuclear bomb testing in people.
- Science & Society
Steven Weinberg looks back at rise of scientific method
Steven Weinberg’s new book ‘To Explain the World’ illustrates the difficulty of the development of modern science.
- Science & Society
Finalists chosen to compete in the 2015 Intel Science Talent Search
Teens from 18 states will soon face off in the finals of the 2015 Intel Science Talent Search, the nation’s most prestigious science research competition for high school seniors.
