Science News

In her new book, Jemma Wadham brings readers along on her scientific expeditions to the world’s iciest places.

Rice provides sustenance for billions who have no alternative, and climate change threatens to slash production. Growers will need to innovate to provide an important crop as climate whiplash brings drought and floods to fields worldwide.

Prehistoric people’s footprints show that humans were in North America during the height of the last ice age, researchers say.

Cooperation among vampire bats extends beyond the roost. New research suggests that bonded bats often drink blood from animals together.

Modern genetic evidence suggests that statue builders on islands such as Rapa Nui, also known as Easter Island, had a shared ancestry.

Scientists envision that small objects modeled after maple tree whirligigs could be used to monitor the environment.

In the United States, boosters may next go to people 65 and older, those at high risk for severe disease and people whose jobs put them at high exposure risk.

By synthesizing norethindrone, one of the first active ingredients in birth control pills, Luis Miramontes helped usher in the sexual revolution.

The fine-structure constant is 10 times its normal value in the material, giving a peek into what physics in an alternate universe could look like.

A lower dose of the vaccine produced as many antibodies in elementary school–age kids as a full-dose shot did in teens and young adults.

In the 100 years since Science News started reporting on it, science has offered up plenty of unexpected discoveries.

Simulations suggest that satellite “mega-constellations” will be visible to the naked eye all night long in some locations.

What makes a modern human? Just 1.5 to 7 percent of human DNA is unique to modern humans, Tina Hesman Saey reported in “Most human DNA is not unique to us” (SN: 8/14/21, p. 7). Reader Mark Jenike wondered how the new research squares with the well-known finding that we humans share more than 98

Our readers are newshounds with boundless curiosity, always eager to learn what’s new, significant or surprising. With each issue, we try to feed that desire for credible, concise — even entertaining — news from many science fields. This issue, too, ranges far and wide. We cover new evidence that the coronavirus may be getting better

She pioneered the field of molecular virology with her meticulous lab work and “green thumb” for tissue culture.

Fossilized footprints at a site in Spain include those of an extinct elephant’s newborns, suggesting the animals may have used the area as a nursery.

African cave finds include remains of skinned creatures and hide scrapers made from animal ribs.

For over a decade, behavioral ecologist Diane Colombelli-Négrel and colleagues have been studying how birds perceive sounds before hatching.

Recent devastating wildfires in Australia added vast amounts of carbon dioxide to the air and triggered blooms of marine algae in the Southern Ocean.

Paleoanthropologists have sketched a rough timeline of how human evolution played out, centering the early action in Africa.