Life
Explainer: What is an endangered species?
Threats such as climate change and habitat loss can put species at risk of going extinct. Different words describe that risk.
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Cover Story
Meet robots on a mission to help birds
A new generation of bird-like robots is helping people better understand and protect the wild animals that inspired them.
Explainer
Technically Fiction
Tech
Could we build a mecha?
In the movies, mechas come equipped with all kinds of abilities. But real giant robots would first have to master simpler actions, like walking and jumping.
Profile
Plants
This urban gardener is mimicking nature to create healthier plants
Urban garden specialist Kwesi Joseph is experimenting with rock dust and plants. He also helps New York City community and school gardens with gardening problems.
More Stories from the April 1, 2024 issue
- Animals
These penguins nap 10,000 times a day, for seconds at a time
Such an extreme sleep schedule may help nesting chinstrap penguins protect their young while still getting more than 11 hours of shut-eye.
- Physics
Before the ancient Egyptians, nature may have carved sphinxes
Steady ‘winds’ can carve clay blobs into lion-shaped landforms called yardangs, a new study suggests. One such yardang may have inspired the Great Sphinx of Giza.
- Health & Medicine
Doctors found a snake parasite in a woman’s brain — still alive
This worm typically infects pythons. Though this is its first known infection in humans, other types of worms also can infect the human brain.
- Planets
Jupiter has a never-before-seen jet stream — and it’s speedy
Spotted in images from the James Webb telescope, the high-altitude current may help untangle the workings of the giant planet’s atmosphere.
- Animals
Experiment: Are we there yet? Test how migratory birds navigate
In this experiment, use real data to figure out how migratory birds navigate from their breeding grounds to their wintering grounds.
- Animals
Here’s why thousands of octopuses gather at the ‘Octopus Garden’
Underwater cameras and other instruments investigated why so many pearl octopuses gather here to mate and nest.
- Tech
Particles from tree waste could prevent fogged lenses, windshields
A new coating made from a renewable resource — water-loving nanoparticles made from wood — could keep glass surfaces fog-free.
