Life
- Brain
Active bodies build stronger brains
Aerobic fitness and physical activity correlate with widespread brain health in adolescents, according to a new imaging study in England.
- Animals
Analyze This: Some dogs quickly learn new words
Two dogs picked up new words after hearing them a few times during play, but 20 other pets didn’t fare so well at learning the names of new toys.
- Health & Medicine
Some young adults will volunteer to get COVID-19 for science
Researchers will soon give some healthy people the new coronavirus. Their young volunteers have agreed to get sick to speed coronavirus research.
- Agriculture
Healthy soils are life-giving black gold
Scientists explain why everyone needs to value the soils beneath our feet — and why we should not view them as dirt.
- Agriculture
Soil (and its inhabitants) by the numbers
Teeming with life, soils have more going on than most of us realize.
- Environment
What you can do to improve soils
Soils are the life-sustaining structures under our feet. Here are some tips for keeping soils healthy. First rule of thumb: Give more than you take.
- Animals
Unique dialects help naked mole-rats tell friends from foes
Computer analysis reveals that these social rodents communicate with speech patterns distinct to each colony.
- Animals
A new chameleon species may be the world’s tiniest reptile
The newly described reptiles live in the northern forests of Madagascar. Deforestation there may also leave them on the brink of extinction.
- Animals
Giant worms may have hidden beneath the ancient seafloor to ambush prey
Twenty-million-year-old tunnels unearthed in Taiwan may have been home to creatures similar to today’s monstrous bobbit worms.
- Tech
A robot made with a Venus flytrap can grab fragile objects
Scientists have “borrowed” the hair-trigger leaves of Venus flytraps to make a gentle grabber that can be controlled by a cellphone app.
- Science & Society
New technology can get inside your head. Are you ready?
New technologies aim to listen to — and maybe even change — your brain activity. But just because scientists can do this, should they?
- Science & Society
People are concerned about tech tinkering with our minds
It’s not science fiction: Science can already eavesdrop on and influence our thoughts. Here’s what our readers think about it.
