All Stories by Stephen Ornes
- Climate
The certainty of climate change
How sure are scientists that people are to blame for global warming? “Extremely likely,” says an international panel of climate change researchers in a new report.
- Health & Medicine
Sleep therapy for fears
Scared? A nap spent inhaling the proper smell might relieve those fears, a study finds.
- Chemistry
Vitamin can keep electronics ‘healthy’
Vitamin E is among cheap materials that can avoid the zap of static electricity — a discharge that risks destroying sensitive electronic circuitry.
- Microbes
Slimming germs
In the gut, the right microbe mix can help keep off extra weight — at least in mice.
- Brain
The upside of cheating
Many people assume that cheaters and thieves will secretly feel shame or guilt. A new study challenges that. It finds that people who cheat without causing anyone much harm actually enjoy a little buzz afterward.
- Space
Bon voyage, Voyager 1
A spacecraft launched more than three decades ago has entered the space between stars.
- Tech
A squishy speaker
Researchers have unveiled a see-through speaker that conducts electricity, is elastic like skin and vibrates like Jell-O.
- Brain
Age-old fears perk up baby’s ears
Kids start paying attention to scary sounds when only a few months old.
- Life
Building an almost-brain
Special cells can weave themselves together into blobs that, under a microscope, look a lot like the brain tissue in a developing fetus. You might think of these cellular masses as “brains-under-development.” Madeline Lancaster and Jürgen Knoblich offer a more technical name for them: “cerebral organoids.”
- Humans
Ancient jewelry from space
Scientists have found beads made out of metal mined from meteorites.
- Brain
Learning words in the womb
Fetuses are listening. And they’ll remember what they heard. Studies had shown they can hear songs and learn sounds while in the womb. Now scientists show that fetuses can learn specific words, too. And for at least a few days after they’re born, babies can still recall commonly repeated words.
- Health & Medicine
Meet the new meat
Scientists made a hamburger without harming animals; but it cost as much as a house.
