Life
The Monkey’s Voyage
By 26 million years ago, the ancestors of today’s New World monkeys had arrived in South America. How those primates reached the continent is something of a conundrum.
Reviews & Previews
Science Visualized
Health & Medicine
Second wave of bird flu ups pandemic worries
The H7N9 avian influenza virus, which first appeared in 2013, is sweeping China with a second, larger wave of illness.
Notebook
Features
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The addiction paradox
Addiction is often seen as a chronic disease that requires maintenance treatment even after years of sobriety. But even without help, most addicts eventually can quit for good.
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Cloudy forecast
Over decades climatologists have grown more confident in their projections of the future impact of greenhouse gas emissions. But whether shifts in cloudiness will amplify global warming continues to vex researchers.
More Stories from the March 22, 2014 issue
- Animals
Windows may kill up to 988 million birds a year in the United States
Single-family homes and low-rise buildings do much more damage than skyscrapers.
- Health & Medicine
Vitamin C could give chemo a boost
Injected into mice, the supplement helped anticancer drugs shrink tumors.
- Materials Science
Scientists throw crystals a curve
Particles inside a sphere assemble into ordered ribbons, not lumps.
- Genetics
When flowers died out in Arctic, so did mammoths
Genetic analysis finds vegetation change in the Arctic around same time as megafauna extinction.
- Climate
Strong winds may have waylaid global warming
Gusts over the Pacific Ocean may have stashed heat underwater since 2001.
- Animals
Embryos in eggs move to get comfy
Even before hatching, Chinese alligators, snapping turtles and some relatives can shift toward favorable temperatures.
- Archaeology
Nearly 1-million-year-old European footprints found
Erosion temporarily unveils remnants of a Stone Age stroll along England’s coast.
- Humans
Clovis baby’s genome unveils Native American ancestry
DNA from skeleton shows all tribes come from a single population.
- Tech
Termite-inspired robots build structures without central command
Simple guidelines keep machines hauling and placing bricks.
- Animals
In crazy vs. fire, the ant with the detox dance wins
Tawny crazy ants pick fights with fire ants and win, thanks to a previously unknown way of detoxifying fire ant venom.
- Math
Goldberg variations: New shapes for molecular cages
Scientists have figured a way to iron out the wrinkles in a large class of molecular cages.
- Earth
Magma spends most of its existence as sludgy mush
Volcanic magma may spend most of its time in a chunky state resembling cold porridge, a new study finds.
- Psychology
Stress hormone rise linked to less risky financial decisions
People given cortisol chose safer options, suggesting inherent risk aversion as an overlooked variable in financial crises.
- Health & Medicine
Highlights from the International Stroke Conference
Clotting risk after pregnancy, driving after a stroke and more presented February 12-14 in San Diego.
- Astronomy
While exploding, supernovas not spherical
X-rays reveal uneven allotment of element made by blowup.
- Neuroscience
Like people, dogs have brain areas that respond to voices
MRI study may help explain how pups understand human communication.
- Animals
Pelican spiders: slow, safe assassins
Spiders, thank goodness, haven’t evolved assassin drones. But the specialized hunters of the family Archaeidae can kill at a distance.
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- Math
Our Mathematical Universe
Math is everywhere: medicine, sports, banking, gambling, National Security Agency espionage.
- Psychology
How string quartets stay together
New data tracking millisecond-scale corrections suggests that some ensembles are more autocratic — following one leader —while other musical groups are more democratic, making corrections equally.
- Ecosystems
Do your bit for bumblebees
The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation and its partners have launched the Bumble Bee Watch website to track sightings. When you see a bee bumbling around, snap a photo.
