All Stories
- Health & Medicine
Cannabis may alter a teen’s developing brain
Marijuana use between ages 14 and 19 was linked to faster thinning of brain regions important in decision-making.
- Archaeology
A medieval grave may have held a powerful nonbinary person
A 1,000-year-old grave in Finland, once thought to hold a respected woman warrior, may belong to someone who didn’t have a strictly male or female identity.
- Psychology
How to resist and counter today’s flood of fake news
Although misinformation bothers most people, few know how to spot deceit or nonsense, studies find.
- Fossils
Baby pterosaurs may have been able to fly right after hatching
A bone crucial for lift-off was stronger in hatchling pterosaurs than in adults. The baby reptiles also had shorter, broader wings than grown-ups.
- Space
Let’s learn about dark matter
Dark matter is only detectable by the gravitational pull it exerts on visible objects, like stars and galaxies.
- Animals
Squirrels use parkour tricks to leap from branch to branch
Squirrels navigate through trees by making rapid calculations. They have to balance trade-offs between branch flexibility and the distance between tree limbs.
- Physics
Scientists Say: Plasma
In physics, plasma refers to one of the four states of matter. In medicine, plasma describes the part of blood that ferries cells, nutrients and more throughout the body.
- Tech
Tiny swimming robots may help clean up a microplastics mess
Big problem, tiny solution. Researchers in the Czech Republic have designed swimming robots that can help collect and break down microplastics.
- Health & Medicine
Discovering the power of placebos
If you take a fake pill and expect to feel better, you may. Researchers are learning how this placebo effect works and how to use it to help patients.
- Archaeology
Skeletons point to world’s oldest known shark attacks
The newfound remains came from people who had lived thousands of years ago in Peru and Japan, half a world apart.
- Humans
Got back-to-school COVID-19 questions? We’ve got answers
If everybody masks up at school, that could prevent a bumpy 2021–22 schoolyear. It also could keep safe those students too young to be vaccinated.
- Humans
How COVID-19 testing plans can keep kids safe in school
As U.S. students head back to school, various testing strategies are being rolled out to help keep kids safe during in-person learning.
