Life
- Brain
Let’s learn about touch
Most senses are concentrated around your head. But touch all over your body, and you need every inch.
- Agriculture
New technologies might help keep drought-prone farms green
After learning how much damage drought can do to crops, two teens designed ways to detect a thirsty plant and make sure it gets enough water.
- Plants
Scientists Say: Pollen
Pollen is a mass of tiny reproductive cells. These grains combine with egg cells to form seeds — but on the way, they can make some people miserable.
- Tech
No animal died to make this steak
The ribeye steak is the first of its kind, and the latest in a growing list of meats printed with a 3-D bioprinter instead of being harvested from an animal.
- Genetics
Europe’s ancient humans often hooked up with Neandertals
DNA from ancient bones shows humans and Neandertals were regularly mixing genes by about 45,000 years ago.
- Ecosystems
Analyze This: Invasive species cost the world billions each year
A new study estimates that invasive species have cost the world more than $1 trillion since 1970. That’s almost certainly an underestimate.
- Fossils
Rhinos, camels and bone-crushing dogs once roamed Nebraska
Scientists digging into the remnants of an ancient watering hole in Nebraska discovered evidence of an Africa-like savanna, complete with rhinos.
- Animals
Explainer: What are cicadas?
There are more than 3,000 species of cicadas, but the best known in North America are periodical cicadas, which emerge every 13 or 17 years.
- Life
These rabbits can’t hop. A gene defect makes them do handstands
Mutations in a gene that helps nerve cells work properly rob rabbits of their ability to hop. Instead, the animals use their front paws to move.
- Animals
How bees play telephone to form a swarm
Honeybees use pheromones and flapping wings to tell each other where to find the queen — so they can all be together. Learn more with this web comic.
- Life
Scientists Say: Genus
A genus is a group of closely related species. It’s the first part of the two-part system called binomial nomenclature, used to name living things.
- Ecosystems
Urchin takeover underlies California’s vanishing kelp forests
Some 95 percent of kelp forests along its northern coast are gone. Meanwhile, sea otters are helping slow the loss of surviving kelp farther south.
