Neandertal DNA recovered from cave mud reveals that these ancient humans spread across Eurasia in two different waves. Analysis of genetic material from three caves …
Earth sweeps up 5,200 tons of extraterrestrial dust each year : by Sid Perkins
As our planet orbits the sun, it swoops through clouds of extraterrestrial dust — and several thousand metric tons of that material actually reaches Earth’s …
Only 3 percent of Earth’s land hasn’t been marred by humans : by Jonathan Lambert
The Serengeti looks largely like it did hundreds of years ago. Lions, hyenas and other top predators still stalk herds of wildebeests over a million …
The P.1 coronavirus variant is twice as transmissible as earlier strains : by Tina Hesman Saey
The P.1 coronavirus variant first identified in Brazil may be twice as transmissible as earlier strains and may evade up to nearly half of immune …
‘Monkeydactyl’ may be the oldest known creature with opposable thumbs : by Maria Temming
Future Jurassic Park films could feature one weird new beast in the menagerie: a pterosaur nicknamed Monkeydactyl for its opposable thumbs. This flying reptile from …
A coronavirus epidemic may have hit East Asia about 25,000 years ago : by Bruce Bower
An ancient coronavirus, or a closely related pathogen, triggered an epidemic among ancestors of present-day East Asians roughly 25,000 years ago, a new study indicates. …
‘First Steps’ shows how bipedalism led humans down a strange evolutionary path : by Riley Black
First StepsJeremy DeSilvaHarper, $27.99 No other animal moves the way we do. That’s awfully strange. Even among other two-legged species, none amble about with a …
STEM’s racial, ethnic and gender gaps are still strikingly large : by Maria Temming
Efforts to promote equity and inclusion in science, technology, engineering and math have a long way to go, a new report suggests. Over the last …
U.S. pauses J&J vaccine rollout after 6 people of 6.8 million get rare blood clots : by Erin Garcia de Jesús
Federal health officials in the United States are pressing pause on administering Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine following rare reports of blood clots in people …
Surprisingly, humans recognize joyful screams faster than fearful screams : by Anushree Dave
Screams of joy appear to be easier for our brains to comprehend than screams of fear, a new study suggests. The results add a surprising …
Wildfires launch microbes into the air. How big of a health risk is that? : by Megan Sever
As climate change brings more wildfires to the western United States, a rare fungal infection has also been on the rise. Valley fever is up …
Discarded COVID-19 PPE such as masks can be deadly to wildlife : by Anne Pinto-Rodrigues
A Magellanic penguin in Brazil ingested a face mask. A hedgehog in England got itself entangled in a glove. An octopus off the coast of …
Corals’ hidden genetic diversity corresponds to distinct lifestyles : by Devin A. Reese
Stony corals that build reefs have been hiding their diversity in plain sight. A genetic analysis of the most widespread reef coral in the Indo-Pacific …
How researchers can keep birds safe as U.S. wind farms expand : by Jack J. Lee
Wind energy is surging in the United States. In 2020, turbines generated about 8 percent of the country’s electricity — roughly 50 times the share …
A trek under Thwaites Glacier’s ice shelf reveals specific risks of warm water : by Carolyn Gramling
The under-ice trek of an autonomous underwater vehicle is giving scientists their first direct evidence for how and where warm ocean waters are threatening the …
A record-breaking, oxygen-starved galaxy may be full of gigantic stars’ shrapnel : by Ken Croswell
The most oxygen-poor star-forming galaxy ever found hints that the first galaxies to arise after the universe’s birth glittered with supermassive stars that left behind …
Ancient humans may have had apelike brains even after leaving Africa : by Charles Choi
Even after ancient humans took their first steps out of Africa, they still unexpectedly may have possessed brains more like those of great apes than …
How matter’s hidden complexity unleashed the power of nuclear physics : by Emily Conover
Matter is a lush tapestry, woven from a complex assortment of threads. Diverse subatomic particles weave together to fabricate the universe we inhabit. But a …
AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine is tied to uncommon blood clots in rare cases : by Erin Garcia de Jesús
In another hiccup for AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine, data suggest it is in fact linked to blood clots that have formed in the brains of some …
Europe’s oldest known humans mated with Neandertals surprisingly often : by Bruce Bower
When some of the earliest human migrants to Europe encountered Neandertals already living there around 45,000 years ago, hookups flourished. Analyses of DNA found in …
People add by default even when subtraction makes more sense : by Sujata Gupta
Picture a bridge made of Legos. One side has three support pieces, the other two. How would you stabilize the bridge? Most people would add …
Muon magnetism could hint at a breakdown of physics’ standard model : by Emily Conover
A mysterious magnetic property of subatomic particles called muons hints that new fundamental particles may be lurking undiscovered. In a painstakingly precise experiment, muons’ gyrations …
Tiny crystals give a plain fish twinkling, colorful dots under light : by Susan Milius
As light shines steadily on a silver slip of a fish, minuscule dots on the fish start flashing: blue, yellow, blue, yellow. The bodies “do …
Yawning helps lions synchronize their groups’ movements : by Jake Buehler
Watch a group of lions yawn, and it may seem like nothing more than big, lazy cats acting sleepy, but new research suggests that these …
‘Pipe Dreams’ flushes out hope in an unexpected place: the toilet : by Maria Temming
Pipe DreamsChelsea WaldAvid Reader Press, $27 Everyone poops. But not everyone has a safe, sanitary place to do it. What’s more, existing wastewater treatments consume …
A spike in Arctic lightning strikes may be linked to climate change : by Maria Temming
Climate change may be sparking more lightning in the Arctic. Data from a worldwide network of lightning sensors suggest that the frequency of lightning strikes …
New depictions of ancient hominids aim to overcome artistic biases : by Tina Hesman Saey
Depictions of extinct human ancestors and cousins are often more art than science. Take, for example, two reconstructions of the Taung child, a 2.8-million-year-old Australopithecus …
Newly made laser-cooled antimatter could test foundations of modern physics : by Maria Temming
For the first time, physicists have used lasers to deep-freeze antimatter. In a new experiment, an ultraviolet laser quelled the thermal jitters of antihydrogen atoms, …
Microscopic images reveal the science and beauty of face masks : by Emiliano Rodríguez Mega
Studying fabrics at very high magnification helps determine how some face masks filter out particles better than others. And the close-ups reveal an unseen beauty …
We’ve covered science for 100 years. Here’s how it has — and hasn’t — changed : by Tom Siegfried
A century ago, people needed help to understand science. Much as they do today. Then as now, it wasn’t always easy to sort the accurate …
The dinosaur-killing asteroid impact radically altered Earth’s tropical forests : by Carolyn Gramling
The day before a giant asteroid hit Earth 66 million years ago, a very different kind of rainforest thrived in what is now Colombia. Ferns …
4 takeaways from the WHO’s report on the origins of the coronavirus : by Erin Garcia de Jesús
A new World Health Organization report investigating the origins of the coronavirus has raised more questions than answers for how — and where — the …
Flamboyant fishes evolved an explosion of color as seas rose and fell : by Jake Buehler
Fairy wrasses are swimming jewels, flitting and flouncing about coral reefs. The finger-length fishes’ brash, vibrant courtship displays are meant for mates and rivals, and …
Pfizer says its COVID-19 vaccine has 100 percent efficacy in young people : by Erin Garcia de Jesús
Pfizer and BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine proved highly effective in adults. Now it appears to work well in younger people too. In a Phase III clinical …
A meteor may have exploded over Antarctica 430,000 years ago : by Sid Perkins
Seventeen tiny particles recovered from a flat-topped mountain in eastern Antarctica suggest that a space rock shattered low in the atmosphere over the ice-smothered continent …
Frog skin cells turned themselves into living machines : by Laura Sanders
Using blobs of skin cells from frog embryos, scientists have grown creatures unlike anything else on Earth, a new study reports. These microscopic “living machines” …
These are the 5 costliest invasive species, causing billions in damages : by Jonathan Lambert
Invasive species can wreak havoc on local ecosystems. Cleaning up that biological wreckage comes at a big price. These invaders, often thrust into new environments …
Stone Age culture bloomed inland, not just along Africa’s coasts : by Bruce Bower
Africa’s southern Kalahari Desert is not typically regarded as a hotbed of Stone Age innovations. And yet human culture blossomed there around 105,000 years ago, …
Physicists’ devotion to symmetry has led them astray before : by Tom Siegfried
Second of two parts Physicists have a lot in common with Ponce de León and U2’s Bono. After decades of searching, they aren’t getting any …
Weather radar shows 30 metric tons of grasshoppers swarmed Las Vegas one night : by Susan Milius
The dazzling lights of Las Vegas are meant to attract. And on one summer night, they did just that, luring millions of grasshoppers— a whopping …
Moderna and Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines may block infection as well as disease : by Tina Hesman Saey
Vaccines against COVID-19 are about 90 percent effective at blocking coronavirus infections, real-world studies of health care workers, firefighters, police, teachers and other essential workers …
Dazzling underwater photos capture new views and scientific detail of fish larvae : by Devin A. Reese
The open ocean is a veritable soup of tiny critters, including newborn fishes. It’s hard to learn about them, though, because they are mere millimeters …
Uranium ‘snowflakes’ could set off thermonuclear explosions of dead stars : by Emily Conover
Tiny crystals of uranium could set off massive explosions within a dead star, physicists propose, making for a cosmic version of a thermonuclear bomb. Expired …
Here’s why humans chose particular groups of stars as constellations : by Emily Conover
The Big Dipper’s stars make up a conspicuous landmark in the sky of the Northern Hemisphere. Even novice stargazers can easily pick out the shape, …
How kelp forests off California are responding to an urchin takeover : by Anushree Dave
Joshua Smith has been diving in kelp forests in Monterey Bay along the central coast of California since 2012. Back then, he says, things looked …
Parents in Western countries report the highest levels of burnout : by Sujata Gupta
The ongoing pandemic has hammered parents. For many, work shifted to home. Schools closed or went partially remote in many places. Grandparents at high risk …
The ‘USS Jellyfish’ emits strange radio waves from a distant galaxy cluster : by Ken Croswell
Something’s fishy in the southern constellation Phoenix. Strange radio emissions from a distant galaxy cluster take the shape of a gigantic jellyfish, complete with head …
A toxin behind mysterious eagle die-offs may have finally been found : by Susan Milius
Mysterious deaths of bald eagles, mallards and other lake life in the southeastern United States have puzzled scientists for more than 20 years. After a …
Simple hand-built structures can help streams survive wildfires and drought : by Brianna Randall
Wearing waders and work gloves, three dozen employees from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service stood at a small creek amid the …
A gene defect may make rabbits do handstands instead of hop : by Erin Garcia de Jesús
One defective gene might turn some bunnies’ hops into handstands, a new study suggests. To move quickly, a breed of domesticated rabbit called sauteur d’Alfort …
AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine holds up in an updated analysis of trial data : by Erin Garcia de Jesús
Analysis of the latest data from a clinical trial for a coronavirus vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford shows the shot is …
Octopus sleep includes a frenzied, colorful, ‘active’ stage : by Laura Sanders
Octopuses cycle through two stages of slumber, a new study reports. First comes quiet sleep, and then a shift to a twitchy, active sleep in …
A plant gene may have helped whiteflies become a major pest : by Jonathan Lambert
At some point between 35 million and 80 million years ago, a whitefly landed on a leaf and started sucking its sweet sap. That fateful …
50 years ago, experiments hinted at the possibility of life on Mars : by Carolyn Gramling
Organics on Mars — Science News, March 27, 1971 [Researchers] have exposed a mixture of gases simulating conditions believed to exist on the surface of …
How using sheepskin for legal papers may have prevented fraud : by Helen Thompson
Fraudulent efforts to tweak legal documents in Great Britain may have been thwarted by the very parchment those documents were written on, a new study …
Atomic clocks take a step toward redefining the second : by Emily Conover
A new measurement moves scientists closer to revamping how we keep time. After scientists redefined the unit of mass, the kilogram, in 2019, they set …
A new black hole image reveals the behemoth’s magnetic fields : by Maria Temming
Astronomers have gotten their first glimpse of the magnetic fields tangled around a black hole. The Event Horizon Telescope has unveiled the magnetism of the …
The dark matter mystery deepens with the demise of a reported detection : by Tom Siegfried
First of two parts In mystery stories, the chief suspect almost always gets exonerated before the end of the book. Typically because a key piece …
Dim lighting may raise the risk of a West Nile virus exposure : by Bethany Brookshire
Don’t dim the lights. A survey using more than 6,000 chickens across Florida shows that low levels of light pollution may increase the risk for …