Climate
Geoengineering is world’s last hope, new book argues
Geoengineering is humankind’s only viable solution to curb climate change impacts, a journalist contends in The Planet Remade.
Reviews & Previews
Science Visualized
Life
Microscopes have come a long way since 1665
A 350-year-old drawing in Robert Hooke’s Micrographia and an award-winning photo demonstrate the evolution of the microscope.
Notebook
Climate
Hurricane reports ignore indirect deaths
Nearly half of all hurricane and tropical storm fatalities are indirect, yet they typically aren’t included in official storm reports.
Features
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Viva vagus: Wandering nerve could lead to range of therapies
Researchers are testing ways to stimulate the vagus nerve to treat a slew of ailments.
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Getting creative to cut methane from cows
Changing feed, giving vaccines and selective breeding may enable scientists to help beef and dairy cattle shake their title as one of society's worst methane producers.
More Stories from the November 28, 2015 issue
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- Animals
DNA trail leads to new spot for dog domestication
A new study suggests that dogs were first domesticated in Central Asia.
- Anthropology
Plagues plagued the Bronze Age
Ancient bacterial DNA provides first clues to Bronze Age plagues in Europe and Asia.
- Neuroscience
Signs of Alzheimer’s seen in young brain’s GPS cells
Signs of Alzheimer’s can show up in the brain’s compass decades before symptoms strike.
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- Quantum Physics
Light mimics hotel with limitless vacancies
By mimicking a mathematician’s method for creating vacancies in a hotel with an infinite number of rooms, physicists may have found a way of increasing the amount of data that can be carried via light.
- Animals
Salamander ancestors could regenerate limbs
Salamanders and ancient amphibians share similar way of regenerating limbs.
- Health & Medicine
Eating meat officially raises cancer risk
Eating processed meats like bacon, ham and sausage causes cancer, says the World Health Organization.
- Life
Rare reptile holds clue to penis evolution
Preserved Victorian specimens reveal budding embryonic penis that disappears before adulthood.
- Planetary Science
Oxygen leaking from comet surprises astronomers
The Rosetta spacecraft detected oxygen molecules coming out of comet 67P that might have been buried since the formation of the solar system.
- Life
How electric eels put more zip in their zap
With feisty prey, an electric eel curls its tail to intensify shocks and exhaust prey.
- Neuroscience
Itch-busting nerve cells could block urge to scratch
A group of nerve cells in the spinal cord keep mechanical itch in check.
- Anthropology
Petite primate fossil could upend ideas about ape evolution
Ancient fossils suggest modern apes descended from a small, gibbonlike creature.
- Tech
Electronic skin feels the heat, hears the sound
Electronic skin inspired by human fingertips detects texture, pressure, heat and sound.
- Planetary Science
Pluto’s smaller moons pose mysteries
The four smaller moons of Pluto are finally revealed in images from New Horizons, and might hold some clues to the dwarf planet’s past.
- Climate
How to melt an ice cave
Frigid winter air keeps gives ice caves their perpetual chill, researchers find, warning that airtight seals on some ice caves could cause the frigid formations to melt within decades.
- Paleontology
Vampire microbes sucked some ancient life dry
Hole-ridden fossils suggest that vampirelike microbes were among the first predators that targeted eukaryotes.
- Particle Physics
Antiprotons match protons in response to strong nuclear force
The first study of how antiprotons interact with each other reveals yet again that particles of antimatter behave just like their ordinary matter counterparts.
- Paleontology
Land life spared in Permian extinction, geologists argue
New rock layer dating in South Africa’s Karoo Basin suggests that extinctions of land species didn’t coincide with the Permian extinction around 252 million years ago.
- Astronomy
Cosmic rays maintain their mystery
Cosmic rays come from all over the universe, including some places we’re not so sure about.
- Life
‘Racing Extinction’ documents plight of endangered species
The new documentary "Racing Extinction" offers hope that people can halt the sixth mass extinction.
- Animals
Cat-versus-virus arms race goes back millennia
Researchers have found evidence of an ancient arms race between Felis silvestris catus, the species familiar today as the domestic cat, and feline immunodeficiency virus.
- Earth
New recipe for diamonds: Just add acid
Simulating the chemistry, pressures and temperatures in Earth’s interior, scientists have discovered a new way diamonds can form.
- Earth
4.1-billion-year-old crystal may hold earliest signs of life
New evidence suggests that life on Earth arose before 4.1 billion years ago, 300 million years earlier than previous estimates.
- Planetary Science
Probes unveil three hidden blemishes on moon’s face
Gravitational tugs on a pair of spacecraft have revealed previously unseen blemishes on the moon’s face.
