Life
- Health & Medicine
Some young adults will volunteer to get COVID-19 for science
Researchers will soon give some healthy people the new coronavirus. Their young volunteers have agreed to get sick to speed coronavirus research.
- Agriculture
Healthy soils are life-giving black gold
Scientists explain why everyone needs to value the soils beneath our feet — and why we should not view them as dirt.
- Agriculture
Soil (and its inhabitants) by the numbers
Teeming with life, soils have more going on than most of us realize.
- Ecosystems
What you can do to improve soils
Soils are the life-sustaining structures under our feet. Here are some tips for keeping soils healthy. First rule of thumb: Give more than you take.
- Animals
Unique dialects help naked mole-rats tell friends from foes
Computer analysis reveals that these social rodents communicate with speech patterns distinct to each colony.
- Animals
A new chameleon species may be the world’s tiniest reptile
The newly described reptiles live in the northern forests of Madagascar. Deforestation there may also leave them on the brink of extinction.
- Animals
Giant worms may have hidden beneath the ancient seafloor to ambush prey
Twenty-million-year-old tunnels unearthed in Taiwan may have been home to creatures similar to today’s monstrous bobbit worms.
- Life
A robot made with a Venus flytrap can grab fragile objects
Scientists have “borrowed” the hair-trigger leaves of Venus flytraps to make a gentle grabber that can be controlled by a cellphone app.
- Brain
New technology can get inside your head. Are you ready?
New technologies aim to listen to — and maybe even change — your brain activity. But just because scientists can do this, should they?
- Brain
People are concerned about tech tinkering with our minds
It’s not science fiction: Science can already eavesdrop on and influence our thoughts. Here’s what our readers think about it.
- Animals
How do you build a centaur?
A centaur has the torso of a human and the body of a horse. It may sound cool, but it wouldn’t work very well.
- Animals
Choked by bacteria, some starfish are turning to goo
For years, researchers thought gooey, dying starfish were infected. Instead, these sea stars are suffocating. And bacteria may be behind it all.
