Planet Nine might be a mirage. What once looked like evidence for a massive planet hiding at the solar system’s edge may be an illusion,…
News tagged as “science”
What do naked mole-rats and ancient sea worms have in common? Quite a bit, which is why they’re sharing real estate in this issue. One…
Shaking up memories A post–World War II data boom clinched the unifying theory of plate tectonics after decades of debate over whether Earth’s crust was…
Each year in California, thousands of wildfires ravage hundreds of thousands of hectares of land. Deciphering how well large swaths of vegetation recover over time…
A flip-flop of Earth’s magnetic poles between 42,000 and 41,000 years ago briefly but dramatically shrank the magnetic field’s strength — and may have triggered…
The first black hole ever discovered still has a few surprises in store. New observations of the black hole–star pair called Cygnus X-1 indicate that…
In a few weeks, dozens of young and healthy volunteers in the United Kingdom will be intentionally exposed to the coronavirus as part of the…
Life expectancy in the United States plunged in the first half of 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold. A preliminary estimate of overall U.S.…
Some genetic variants inherited from Neandertals may protect against developing severe COVID-19. A new study looked at a stretch of DNA on chromosome 12 where…
The oldest DNA ever recovered from an animal is adding new chapters to mammoth life history, going back more than 1 million years. Genetic material…