All Stories
- Brain
To reveal how the brain creates joy, start by tickling rats
Rats love a good tickle. Not only do they beg for more, but the action itself activates a part of the brain that detects touch, researchers find.
- Psychology
Racism hurts
Hate crimes and harassment since the 2016 election affirm that racism still exists in America. Here’s what racism is, how it hurts and how people who witness it can respond.
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These scientists study plants and animals by land and sea
Many people become scientists because they love life outdoors. Meet some women in biology who get to spend their careers outside.
- Health & Medicine
Five things students can do about racism
Racism plagues societies around the world and has since ancient times. But scientists who have studied its impacts offer suggestions on how to make it stop.
- Genetics
Scientists Say: eDNA
Animals may escape traps or nets, but they often leave DNA behind in their environment, giving scientists important clues.
- Brain
What makes a pretty face?
Beautiful faces are symmetrical and average. Do we prefer them because this makes them easier for our brains to process?
- Health & Medicine
Implant traps cancer cells on the move
A device implanted under the skin extended the life of mice with breast cancer. It trapped injected cancer cells before they created tumors in organs throughout the body.
- Health & Medicine
Simpler way to screen for hidden hearing loss?
Many teens today walk around with undiagnosed hearing damage. But some Boston-based researchers have come up with a low-tech approach to screening these individuals so they can get help.
- Health & Medicine
‘Ringing’ in the ears may signal serious ear damage
A persistent ringing in the ears, also known as tinnitus, has become common in teens — and may point to eventual, permanent hearing loss.
- Animals
These young inventors had to make like a crab
This year’s top challenge for Broadcom MASTERS finalists was to design and build a robotic arm based on a crab’s arm and claw.
- Climate
2015’s record heat: It will soon be ‘normal’
The record-setting global temperatures seen in 2015 could become common as soon as the 2020s, and known as the “new normal.”
- Animals
Speckled dino spurs debate about ancient animals’ colors
Structures found in fossil dinosaur skin may give clues to the creatures’ colors and how they lived. But not all scientists agree on how to interpret what they see.
