MS-LS2-2
Construct an explanation that predicts patterns of interactions among organisms across multiple ecosystems.
- Animals
Analyze This: Shimmering colors may help beetles hide
Delve into data showing how brilliant colors that shift as a viewer — or predator — moves may help iridescent insects blend in.
- Health & Medicine
Explainer: What are allergies?
Sometimes the body’s immune system works too well, like a smoke alarm that blares every time you cook pizza. The results can range from uncomfortable to potentially life-threatening.
- Health & Medicine
The many challenges of corralling a coronavirus outbreak
The Chinese government has quarantined millions of people in hopes of limiting spread of a new coronavirus. But no one yet knows how much this will help.
- Earth
Newfound desert soil community lives on sips of fog
Lichens and other fungi and algae team up to form a 'grit-crust' on the parched soil of Chile’s Atacama Desert. Those species slake their thirst with moisture from coastal fog.
- Health & Medicine
Explainer: What is a coronavirus?
Coronaviruses are a diverse family of disease-causing agents. Some cause the common cold. Newer ones have emerged to pose more serious threats to people.
- Genetics
Serious virus emerges in China and is spreading globally
A new viral infection emerged in December 2019 among people in Wuhan, China. The mystery illness has already killed at least 17 people and sickened many hundreds.
- Animals
Australian fires have imperiled up to 100 species
As massive wildfires consume huge swaths of Australia’s bush, untold species — many of them found nowhere else — are now threatened with extinction.
- Animals
Why some whales become giants and others are only big
Being big helps whales access more food. But just how big a whale can get is influenced by whether it hunts or filter-feeds.
- Health & Medicine
Globetrotting microbes in airplane sewage may spread antibiotic resistance
Along with harder-to-kill microbes, airplane sewage contains a diverse set of the genes that let bacteria evade antibiotics.
- Animals
Whales echolocate with big clicks and tiny amounts of air
Toothed whales may echolocate using bits of air that they recycle inside their heads to conserve both air and energy.
- Health & Medicine
By the numbers: How infectious measles and other diseases spread
A number called R0 measures how contagious an infectious disease is. It helps explain why measles is so dangerous.
- Life
Explainer: Prokaryotes and Eukaryotes
Prokaryotes tend to be small and simple, while eukaryotes have embraced a highly organized lifestyle. These divergent approaches to life have both proved very successful.
