Health & Medicine
‘In the Blood’ traces how a lifesaving product almost didn’t make it
There’s plenty of drama in Charles Barber’s new book, which explores why a blood-clotting invention was initially dismissed.
Featured Articles in this Issue
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Cover Story
Weird black holes may hold secrets of the early universe
Big black holes in little galaxies, rogue black holes and other behemoths could offer clues to cosmic evolution.
Reviews & Previews
Science Visualized
Neuroscience
The classic map of how the human brain manages movement gets an update
Functional MRI scans provide a new version of the motor homunculus, the mapping of how the primary motor cortex controls parts of the body.
Notebook
Life
50 years ago, flesh-eating screwworms pushed scientists to mass produce flies
"Fly factories” dreamed up in the early 1970s have helped North and Central America keep screwworms in check for decades.
Features
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The Great Salt Lake is shrinking. What can we do to stop it?
A dropping lake level affects agriculture, public health and the environment — but water conservation can halt the decline.
More Stories from the June 3, 2023 issue
- Animals
This elephant peels bananas, but only slightly ripe ones
Pang Pha, an Asian elephant at Zoo Berlin, probably picked up the skill by observing her zookeeper.
- Planetary Science
Why you shouldn’t use magnets when looking for meteorites
A popular tool for identifying meteorites can overwrite records of magnetic fields stored within the space rocks.
- Materials Science
A vegan leather made of dormant fungi can repair itself
Researchers developed a leather alternative made from dormant fungus that can be reanimated and then regrow when damaged.
- Animals
This marine biologist is on a mission to save endangered rays
Jessica Pate and the Florida Manta Project confirm that endangered mantas are mating and sicklefin devils are migrating along the East Coast.
- Life
Ancient giant eruptions may have seeded nitrogen needed for life
A new study bolsters the idea that on the young Earth volcanic lightning may have provided some materials that made it possible for life to emerge.
- Astronomy
For the first time, astrophysicists have caught a star eating a planet
A burst of light and a cloud of dust are signs that a star 12,000 light-years away swallowed a planet up to 10 times the mass of Jupiter.
- Astronomy
A streak of light may not be a black hole fleeing its galaxy after all
A suspicious trail of starlight may just be a spiral galaxy seen edge on, not stars that formed in the wake of a runaway supermassive black hole.
- Quantum Physics
A sapphire Schrödinger’s cat shows that quantum effects can scale up
The atoms in a piece of sapphire oscillate in two directions at once, a mimic of the hypothetically dead-and-alive feline.
- Health & Medicine
Ultrasound allows a chemotherapy drug to enter the human brain
An early-stage clinical trial demonstrates a technique for getting a powerful chemotherapy drug past the usually impenetrable blood-brain barrier.
- Health & Medicine
Women who’ve had breast cancer can safely pause treatment for pregnancy
Hormone therapy cannot be taken during pregnancy. A new study is reassuring for women who’ve had breast cancer and want to try for a baby.
- Life
Comb jellies have a bizarre nervous system unlike any other animal
A 3-D map of the comb jelly “nerve net” reveals fused neurons that lack the space, or synapses, most neurons use to communicate. Did it evolve independently?
- Health & Medicine
Mouse hair turns gray when certain stem cells get stuck
Stem cells involved in giving hair its color must keep moving and changing maturity levels to prevent graying, a mouse study suggests.
- Archaeology
Ancient human DNA was extracted from a 20,000-year-old deer tooth pendant
Insights into Stone Age people’s lives may soon come from a new, nondestructive DNA extraction method.
- Animals
A 2,200-year-old poop time capsule reveals secrets of the Andean condor
Guano that has accumulated in a cliffside Andean condor nest for 2,200 years reveals how the now-vulnerable birds responded to a changing environment.
