Earth
North America’s largest recorded earthquake helped confirm plate tectonics
Henry Fountain’s 'The Great Quake' mixes drama and science to tell the story of the 1964 Alaska earthquake.
Featured Articles in this Issue
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Cover Story
Teaching methods go from lab to classroom
Cognitive researchers are finding ways to help young students to hold on to all the knowledge and skills they need to succeed in school.
Reviews & Previews
Science Visualized
Oceans
How deep water surfaces around Antarctica
New 3-D maps trace the pathway that deep water takes to the surface of the Southern Ocean.
Notebook
Tech
Meet the Bobcat Nanowagon, the world’s smallest monster truck
Chemists are scratching their heads over the wreckage of minuscule monster trucks.
Features
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Learning takes brain acrobatics
Brains that learn best seem able to reconfigure themselves on the fly, a new line of research suggests.
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Machines are getting schooled on fairness
Machine-learning programs are introducing biases that may harm job seekers, loan applicants and more.
More Stories from the September 16, 2017 issue
- Planetary Science
Moon had a magnetic field for at least a billion years longer than thought
The moon’s magnetic field could have lasted until about a billion years ago.
- Life
Polluted water: It’s where sea snakes wear black
Reptile counterpart proposed for textbook example of evolution favoring darker moths amid industrial soot.
- Particle Physics
Normally aloof particles of light seen ricocheting off each other
Scientists spot evidence of photons interacting at the Large Hadron Collider.
- Earth
Seismologists get to the bottom of how deep Earth’s continents go
Scientists may have finally pinpointed the bottoms of the continents.
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- Health & Medicine
A new tool could one day improve Lyme disease diagnosis
There soon could be a way to differentiate between Lyme disease and a similar tick-associated illness.
- Neuroscience
How an itch hitches a ride to the brain
Scientists have figured out how your brain registers the sensation of itch.
- Life
Embryos kill off male tissue to become female
Female embryos actively dismantle male reproductive tissue, a textbook-challenging study suggests.
- Astronomy
We share the Milky Way with 100 million black holes
New census calculates black hole populations in galaxies big and small.
- Astronomy
Cosmic lens lets astronomers zoom in on a black hole’s burps
The beginnings of a jet from an active black hole in a distant galaxy were spotted thanks to a lucky alignment.
- Anthropology
Some secrets of China’s terra-cotta army are baked in the clay
Specialized production system lay behind the famous terra-cotta troops found in ancient Chinese emperor’s tomb.
- Tech
New antennas are up to a hundredth the size of today’s devices
A new type of antenna could be used in tiny electronics for wearable tech, injectable medical devices and more.
- Anthropology
Nitty-gritty of Homo naledi’s diet revealed in its teeth
Ancient humanlike species ate something that damaged its teeth.
- Physics
Molecules face the big chill
Scientists have cooled molecules below a previously impassable limit.
- Animals
This sea snake looks like a banana and hunts like a Slinky
A newly identified sea snake subspecies is known to live in a single gulf off the Pacific coast of Costa Rica.
- Tech
50 years ago, West Germany embraced nuclear power
In 1967, Germany gave nuclear power a try. Today, the country is trading nukes for renewables.
- Climate
Rising temperatures threaten heat-tolerant aardvarks
Aardvarks may get a roundabout hit from climate change — less food.
- Archaeology
People may have lived in Brazil more than 20,000 years ago
Stone Age humans left behind clues of their presence at a remote Brazilian rock shelter.
