Life
- 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.
- Health & Medicine
Like bloodhounds, worms are sniffing out human cancers
Scents emitted by diseased cells may usher in a new era of safe, low-cost screening tests for cancer and other illnesses.
- Tech
Smartphones can now bring Ice Age animals back to ‘life’
Scientists bring Ice Age creatures to life with augmented reality. You can view these creatures in your own world on a smartphone.
- Animals
Losing some genes may explain how vampire bats can live on blood
Loss of 13 genes active in other bats could support the vampires’ blood-eating strategies and adaptations.
- Animals
Infected caterpillars become zombies that climb to their deaths
By tampering with genes involved in vision, a virus can send caterpillars on a doomed quest for sunlight.
- Psychology
Lying won’t stretch your nose, but it will steal some brainpower
The science of lying shows that most people don’t lie often. But when they do, it takes a surprising toll on their brains.
- Animals
Scientists Say: Migration
Migration involves the movement of animals or people from one place to another.
- Animals
The scent of queen ‘murder hornets’ can lure males into traps
Traps baited with compounds found in the mating pheromone of hornet queens attracted thousands of males.
- Microbes
Kitchen sponges are bacteria’s dream home
Sponges are favorite spots for bacteria, partly because of the mixed-housing environment that the cleaner-uppers offer microbes.
- Chemistry
Scientists Say: Inorganic
Inorganic molecules include salts, minerals and other compounds that lack organics’ carbon-hydrogen bonds.
- Animals
Surprise! Sixteen tiny wasp species found masquerading as one
Scientists used new and old tools to overturn 160-year-old ideas about this wasp. They show you can’t tell a wasp by its looks.
- Fossils
One of the earliest meat-eating mammals was saber-toothed
Millions of years before the evolution of saber-toothed cats, a newly discovered "hypercarnivore" prowled the forests of what is now San Diego.
