From Molecules to Organisms: Structures and Processes
- Animals
Sea sponges spew slow-motion snot rockets to clear out their pores
Sea sponges rely on a sneezing technique to clear their pores. The mucus flushes out debris — and provides a snack for other marine life.
- Climate
Heat waves appear more life-threatening than scientists once thought
This is bad news as a warming planet leads to growing numbers of excessive heat waves — and millions more people facing potentially deadly temperatures.
- Chemistry
Scientists Say: Pigment
From fruits to fur to fine art, many materials get their colors from compounds called pigments.
- Health & Medicine
Teen arm wrestlers face risk of an unusual elbow break
The pointy part of the inner elbow can break in arm wrestling, especially among teens whose bones are still growing.
- Animals
Why these jumping toadlets get confused mid-flight
The tiny pumpkin toadlet tumbles when it jumps. Its ear canals may be too tiny to help the animal track its motion through the air.
- Tech
This robotic finger is covered in living human skin
The advance brings super realistic cyborgs one small step closer to reality.
- Space
The first plants ever grown in moon dirt have sprouted
This tiny garden shows farming on the moon may be difficult, although not impossible.
- Animals
Orb-weaving spiders use their webs like external eardrums
Scientists discover that orb-weaving spiders listen with their legs, detecting sound vibrations that travel through their silken webs.
- Plants
Some redwood leaves make food while others drink water
The two types of leaves grow at different heights in trees at dry versus wet areas. They may help redwoods adapt to climate change.
- Brain
Warning! Nicotine poses special risks to teens
Even a single dose of nicotine during early teen years can start a life-long cycle of nicotine use and addiction.
- Animals
Monstrous mammals would break the body rules
Giant mammals and people thunder through our movies and books. But real mammals can only get so large before they can’t take the heat.
- Plants
Electric shocks act like vaccines to protect plants from viruses
To protect crops against viruses in their home country of Taiwan, two teens invented a novel approach to fight blights.
