In their dying throes, some stars leave behind beautiful planetary nebulae — disk, spiral or even butterfly-shaped clouds of dust and gas (SN: 5/17/18). How…
News published in “Science”
Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko has its own version of the northern lights. Observations taken by the Rosetta spacecraft reveal the comet’s aurora, which — unlike Earth’s eye-catching…
Ostracods look like nothing more than seeds with legs. But some species of these tiny crustaceans have an outsize claim to fame: giant sperm. In…
With humankind focused on surviving the SARS-CoV-2 virus, I find it oddly reassuring to think about other deadly foes we’ve faced. Some, like the virus…
Birds of a fossil feather Four-winged Microraptor, perhaps one of the earliest flying dinosaurs, may have molted just a bit at a time — similar…
When Nigerian physician Garba Iliyasu was 10, a venomous snake bit a family member. The man survived, but “it was quite severe,” Iliyasu recalls. “[He]…
The specter of a “twindemic” — two epidemics at the same time — looms as cold and flu season is set to start in October…
Acrid smoke continues to pollute skies in the western United States. On some recent days, the air quality in Portland, Seattle, San Francisco and Los…
Amoebic killers — Science News, September 19, 1970 A fearsome [disease] has been recognized in recent years, produced by a one-cell organism…. Mercifully, human invasion…
Footprints discovered at what was once a rain-fed lake in Saudi Arabia’s Nefud Desert suggest that humans on the move made a pit stop there…