Animals
Explainer: What are cicadas?
There are more than 3,000 species of cicadas, but the best known in North America are periodical cicadas, which emerge every 13 or 17 years.
Featured Articles in this Issue
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Cover Story
Invertebrates are pretty clever, but are they conscious?
Scientists are designing experiments to test whether these animals have self-aware experiences as we do.
Explainer
Technically Fiction
Health & Medicine
Here’s why Rapunzel’s hair makes a great rope ladder
The fairy tale ‘Rapunzel’ features a princess with a lifesaving head of hair. Could someone really use their hair as a ladder? Sort of.
Profile
Animals
Dancing spiders inspired this biologist to teach others
Inspired by his research in animal communication, Echeverri began exploring ways to teach others about science while finishing his Ph.D. Today, he shares his passion for spiders as a science communicator.
Features
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Invertebrates are pretty clever, but are they conscious?
Scientists are designing experiments to test whether these animals have self-aware experiences as we do.
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There’s a real upside to knowing you could be wrong
We’re often certain that what we believe is true. But questioning those beliefs, as Galileo did, can help us learn better — and even perform better on tests.
More Stories from the May 1, 2024 issue
- Physics
How much fruit can you pull from a display before it topples?
About 10 percent of the fruit in a tilted market display can be removed before it will crash down, computer models show.
- Animals
Bonobos cooperate across social groups — even with no clear payoff
Bonobos cooperate with outsiders, even when they get no clear benefit out of it. This could shed light on social evolution in other primates, even us.
- Planets
Huge polygons on Mars hint its equator may once have been frozen
A Chinese rover used radar to reveal long-buried terrain. The discovery hints that Mars’ equator was once much colder and wetter.
- Physics
Physics explains what happens when a lawn sprinkler sucks in water
Experiments with a floating sprinkler revealed the surprisingly complex physics behind a simple question.
- Earth
Experiment: Can plants stop soil erosion?
Soil erosion washes pollutants into streams and rivers — but plants may help limit that.
- Tech
Talking through a tube can trick AI into mistaking one voice for another
Researchers crafted tubes that can trick AI into mistaking one person’s voice for another’s. Bad guys could use such tricks to hack into accounts.
