All Stories
- Climate
Night-glowing clouds crept south this summer
Clouds typical of polar skies have been showing up over the lower United States. Scientists want to know why.
- Health & Medicine
Measles can harm a child’s defense against other serious infections
Getting the measles can leave the body vulnerable to other infections months or even years later, scientists are finding.
- Brain
This brain region may make lifelike robots creep you out
Robots that look too much like real people can be unsettling. Scientists identified a brain region that may be behind these uneasy feelings.
- Climate
Climate change made 2019 European heat wave worse
An intense heat spell gripped much of Europe in June. A network of climate scientists now reports finding that global warming made the event much more likely.
- Climate
Explainer: What is attribution science?
A relatively new, developing field of science investigates possible links between climate change and extreme weather events.
- Animals
Ancient crocodiles may have preferred chomping plants, not meat
Fossil teeth of ancient crocodilians suggest that some ate plants and that such green diets evolved in crocs at least three times more than 60 million years ago.
- Physics
Scientists Say: Big Bang
The Big Bang is the current theory about how our universe came to be. It began with a vast explosion of matter — a very Big Bang.
- Animals
New treatment offers hope for bats battling white nose syndrome
A fungal disease that has wiped out millions of North American bats has a new challenger: antifungal bacteria. Infected bats treated with the germs had a good chance of surviving.
- Earth
Sunlight can produce energy and clean water at the same time
A new device can make electricity from the sun. What makes it truly special, however: It uses waste heat from the system to turn dirty water or salty water into drinking water.
- Earth
Three things scientists want to know after California’s July earthquakes
Major back-to-back earthquakes struck northern California on July 4 and 5 — but not where geoscientists were expecting them. That’s raised some questions about how things might be changing.
- Animals
Some mama whales may whisper to keep calves safe from orcas
Even enormous whales can fear the threat that orcas pose to their babies. It now seems that some have taken to whispering to help their young stay off the killer whales’ radar.
- Earth
Record seaweed belt spanned from Africa to Gulf of Mexico
Blooms of Sargassum seaweed used to form at the mouth of the Amazon River each year. In 2011, they mushroomed in size to where they now span from South America across to Africa.
