All Stories
- Animals
Analyze This: How sea slugs get their flashy colors
Crystals beneath the skin of nudibranchs, also called sea slugs, allow the creatures to make an array of intense hues with just one material.
- Plants
A geometric pattern lurks in Chinese money plant leaves
Tiny water-oozing pores appear to shape the leaves’ veins into a “Voronoi diagram.”
- Earth
Scientists Say: Fjord
These dramatic, steep-sided sea inlets form when glaciers carve deep channels from the terrain.
- Microbes
Dormant microbes from Ötzi the Iceman’s body can grow in the lab
These cold-loving yeasts may be thousands of years old. They also suggest the mummy’s remains may not be completely frozen in time.
- Climate
A ‘super’ El Niño appears to be emerging. What’s the big deal?
The climate pattern could bring “shockingly high” temps this winter, plus extreme weather. Some scientists are looking into an engineering “fix.”
- Animals
King cobras may be riding trains across India [COMIC]
The snakes may be tempted onboard by tasty rodents — but train rides can carry cobras far from their forest habitats.
- Earth
Scientists Say: Subsidence
This word describes land that sinks after water, minerals, oil or other materials are removed below ground.
- Animals
Chatty cats and talking dogs could one day ‘speak’ in our language
Scientists are making advances in decoding animal sounds. That might someday make animal translators a possibility.
- Archaeology
The mystery of the ‘Plain of Jars’ in Laos may now be solved
The remains of at least 37 people sit in an ancient stone “jar.” They suggest thousands of such jars in Laos are burial vaults.
- Oceans
Big waves shape this surfer-scientist’s research and life
Professor and pro surfer Cliff Kapono studies human-ocean interactions through the lens of a surfer, from molecular to macro scales.
- Physics
Physics explains why gold doesn’t ‘rust’
Metals like copper tarnish when they react with oxygen in the air. Gold doesn’t, thanks to a quick rearrangement of atoms on its surface.
- Space
Scientists Say: Event horizon
Past this boundary, nothing that enters a black hole can ever leave — not even light.
