Science & Society

  1. Astronomy

    50 years ago, Mauna Kea opened for astronomy. Controversy continues

    Current plans to build a new telescope on the volcano sparked the latest conflict.

    By Emily Conover
  2. Health & Medicine

    Five big questions about when and how to open schools amid COVID-19

    Researchers weigh in on how to get children back into classrooms in a low-risk way.

    By Bethany Brookshire, Aimee Cunningham, Erin Garcia de Jesús, Jonathan Lambert and Laura Sanders
  3. Life

    Wild bees add about $1.5 billion to yields for just six U.S. crops

    Native bees help pollinate blueberries, cherries and other crops on commercial farms.

    By Susan Milius
  4. Plants

    This parasitic plant consists of just flashy flowers and creepy suckers

    With only four known species, Langsdorffia are thieves stripped down to their essentials.

    By Susan Milius
  5. Animals

    How Yellowstone wolves got their own Ancestry.com page

    Since the wolves’ reintroduction to the park, 25 years of devoted watching has chronicled bold moves, big fights and lots of puppies.

    By Susan Milius
  6. Science & Society

    College biology textbooks still portray a world of white scientists

    Despite recent efforts to include more women and people of color, it will be decades — or even centuries — before textbooks reflect student diversity.

    By Bethany Brookshire
  7. Humans

    Competitive hot dog eaters may be nearing humans’ max eating speed

    Just how many hot dogs can one human eat in 10 minutes? New research suggests the answer is 83.

    By Jonathan Lambert
  8. Science & Society

    There’s little evidence showing which police reforms work

    When stories of police violence against civilians capture public attention, reforms follow despite a dearth of hard data quantifying their impact.

    By Sujata Gupta
  9. Science & Society

    All kinds of outbreaks, from COVID-19 to violence, share the same principles

    Adam Kucharski talks about his new book ‘The Rules of Contagion,’ a timely read during the coronavirus pandemic.

    By Cassandra Willyard
  10. Space

    Self-destructive civilizations may doom our search for alien intelligence

    A lack of signals from space may also be bad news for Earthlings.

    By Tom Siegfried
  11. Science & Society

    The U.S. largely wasted time bought by COVID-19 lockdowns. Now what?

    As states reopen, most don’t have adequate systems in place to test, trace and isolate new COVID-19 cases, setting the stage for future outbreaks.

    By Jonathan Lambert
  12. Health & Medicine

    COVID-19 case clusters offer lessons and warnings for reopening

    As restaurants, offices and other businesses open, trends in where and how COVID-19 transmission is happening could help guide re-entry strategies.

    By Helen Thompson