Life
- Tech
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.
- Earth
Analyze This: Tropical forests have gotten patchier
Although many of the world's forests have gotten less fragmented since 2000, tropical forests have gotten more chopped up, putting animals at risk.
- 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.
- Animals
Scientists Say: Vertebrate
Animals with spines, or vertebrates, come in all shapes and sizes.
- Brain
‘Lucid’ dreamers could solve mysteries about sleeping minds
People who know they’re asleep while dreaming could help study how sleeping minds create elaborate alternate realities.
- Animals
Let’s learn about vampire bats
Vampire bats rarely bite people, instead preferring to feed on animals like cows and horses.
- Animals
Adult corals have been frozen and revived for the first time
Living corals could be frozen for safekeeping. Scientists could later revive them to restore reef ecosystems that are withering in warming seas.
- Chemistry
Scientists Say: Lignin
This rigid polymer transports water and gives trees their strength.
- Animals
Where does Godzilla get his atomic breath?
Some secrets of the kaiju’s atomic breath can be explained with creative applications of physics and biology.
- Ecosystems
The Amazon is in trouble. Here’s why — and why it matters
Challenges from human-caused climate change, deforestation and degradation leave the fate of this vast forest uncertain.
- Physics
‘Feathering’ helps explain Gentoos’ record-breaking swim speed
Videos and computer analyses reveal the secrets of the penguins’ superspeed. The results could inspire future underwater vehicles.
- Health & Medicine
RNA work that led to COVID-19 vaccines wins 2023 Nobel in medicine
Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman overcame hurdles to using mRNA for medicine. This led to COVID vaccines — and maybe, one day, some for other infections.
