In ‘Thank You, Madagascar,’ primatologist Alison Jolly, who spent decades studying lemurs, provides an insider’s account of the struggles that conservationists face.
In visible light, sunspots look like dark blotches that often expel flares of searing plasma. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory offers a different view.
A standard method for building fires, making the height about equal to the width, is the most efficient structure for stoking the hottest flames, calculations show.
E-cigarettes have surpassed cigarettes as the most commonly used tobacco product among teenagers. Medical researchers are sounding the alarm.
Quantum dots, semiconductor particles that can emit a rainbow of colors, have been put to work observing living cells, with possible benefits for medical diagnosis.
On the eve of the arrival of the New Horizons spacecraft, Pluto’s tiny moons hint at a common origin.
Human embryos come with some heavy-duty erasers. Chemical tags on DNA get mostly wiped out in the womb.
When a female mouse is in an infertile stage of her reproductive cycle, her nose cells don’t alert her brain to the presence of a potential mate.
Scientists may be able to forecast the arrival of anomalously large ocean swells, suggest scientists who analyzed the moments before rogue water waves and freak light flashes.
Problems with preclinical research often stem from study design and experiments’ materials.
A swaying forest of mangrovelike magnetic fields on the sun could be the answer to why the solar atmosphere is millions of degrees hotter than the surface.
A new study indicates long journeys and unexpected genetic links in Bronze Age Eurasian cultures.
Chimps make laughing faces that speak to evolution of human ha-ha’s.
African trackers help researchers interpret ancient human footprints in French caves.
Scientists find seven new species of frogs in southern Brazil, and more could be waiting, they say.
An up-close look at artificially triggered quakes suggests that tremors start slow and smooth.
If cannibalism hadn’t stopped, a protective protein may have ended kuru anyway.
Brain regions involved in recognizing familiar songs are relatively unscathed in Alzheimer’s disease.
Aging may have developed in many species as a genetic mechanism to conserve future resources. If the controversial proposal is true, then scientists may be able to greatly extend life span by deactivating the machinery for aging embedded in our DNA.
Incorrect ideas prove more dangerous in bold velvet spiders than in shyer ones.
In ritualized combat between deadly mantis shrimp, blows count but don’t kill.
The immune system’s T cells, often evaded by tumors, might now resume the attack.
On July 14, 1965, Mariner 4 became the first spacecraft to fly by Mars. The probe also sent back the first pictures of another planet taken from space.
The Grand Canyon is much younger than previous research had suggested, a new study says.
Saturn has an invisible belt that's nearly 270 times as wide as the giant planet, researchers report.
Antibiotics can successfully treat the majority of cases of a type of appendicitis, researchers find.
A free new app compiles millions of records of species worldwide and allows users to add sightings.
Jerry Coyne’s ‘Faith vs. Fact’ argues that science is the best – perhaps only – way of learning about the world.
A science book inspired by fictional scientists helps readers understand everything from particle physics to potato electricity.
A lifelong amateur radio enthusiast, Joseph Taylor sends signals via the moon.
