Animals
‘The Curious Life of Krill’ is an ode to an underappreciated crustacean
A new book makes the case that Antarctic krill and the dangers they face deserve your attention.
Featured Articles in this Issue
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Cover Story
Fighting like an animal doesn’t always mean a duel to the death
Conflict resolution within species isn’t always deadly and often involves cost-benefit analyses.
Reviews & Previews
Science Visualized
Animals
See (and hear) the stunning diversity of bowhead whales’ songs
Bowhead whales display a huge range in their underwater melodies, but the drivers behind this diversity remain murky.
Notebook
Health & Medicine
50 years ago, starving tumors of oxygen proposed as weapon in cancer fight
Starving cancerous tumors of oxygen was proposed to help kill them. But the approach can make some cancer cells more aggressive.
Features
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The recipes for solar system formation are getting a rewrite
A new understanding of exoplanets and their stars is rewriting the recipes for planet formation.
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How a backyard pendulum saw sliced into a Bronze Age mystery
A saw no one has seen may have built Bronze Age Greek palaces.
More Stories from the May 12, 2018 issue
- Animals
Toxins from the world’s longest animal can kill cockroaches
Bootlace worms can stretch up to 55 meters long and ooze toxins that can kill cockroaches and green crabs.
- Paleontology
This ancient lizard may have watched the world through four eyes
A lizard that lived 50 million years ago had both a third and a fourth eye.
- Neuroscience
Human brains make new nerve cells — and lots of them — well into old age
In humans, new neurons are still born in old brains, new research suggests.
- Environment
Microplastics may enter freshwater and soil via compost
Compost is pinpointed as a source of plastic pollution, but environmental fate and effects unknown.
- Astronomy
Dark matter isn’t interacting with itself after all
Hints that a distant galactic collision knocked dark matter askew fizzled with new observations.
- Anthropology
Finger fossil puts people in Arabia at least 86,000 years ago
A desert discovery suggests that Arabia was an ancient human destination.
- Microbes
This material uses energy from ambient light to kill hospital superbugs
A quantum dot–powered material could help reduce the number of hospital-acquired infections, including those with drug-resistant bacteria.
- Astronomy
With the launch of TESS, NASA will boost its search for exoplanets
The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite will set the stage for the next chapter of exoplanet exploration.
- Chemistry
Using laser tweezers, chemists nudged two atoms to bond
This is the first time researchers have purposefully combined two specific atoms into a molecule.
- Physics
A key constant’s new measurement hints ‘dark photons’ don’t exist
New measurement of the fine-structure constant is the most precise yet.
- Genetics
Sweet potatoes might have arrived in Polynesia long before humans
Genetic analysis suggests that sweet potatoes were present in Polynesia over 100,000 years ago, and didn’t need help crossing the Pacific.
- Health & Medicine
This is how norovirus invades the body
Norovirus targets a rare type of gut cell, a study in mice finds.
- Archaeology
Dogs lived and died with humans 10,000 years ago in the Americas
Dogs unearthed at sites in Illinois were older than originally thought.
- Science & Society
Here’s why putting a missile defense system in space could be a bad idea
Expanding missile defense capabilities could put the world on a slippery slope to space warfare.
- Animals
These seals haven’t lost their land ancestors’ hunting ways
Clawed pawlike forelimbs help true seals hunt like their land-dwelling ancestors.
- Planetary Science
This meteorite’s diamonds hint that it was born in a lost planet
Bits of metal nestled inside diamonds suggest the space rock could have formed in a Mars-sized protoplanet in the early solar system.
- Oceans
Masses of shrimp and krill may play a huge role in mixing oceans
Hoards of migrating shrimp and krill can cause large-scale turbulence in the ocean, a new study suggests.
- Life
Larger spleens may help ‘sea nomads’ stay underwater longer
The Bajau people of Southeast Asia have a gene variant associated with larger spleens, boosting their oxygen while breath-hold diving, researchers say.
- Climate
Heat waves are roasting reefs, but some corals may be resilient
The latest research on coral reefs clarifies the devastation of heat waves and looks at how coral might be able to adapt to warming waters.
