Science

Science

[:es]Mysterious ancient rock art may have been made with beeswax[:]

This 500-year-old rock art is among the rarest in the world. Found at a site called Yilbilinji near northern Australia’s Gulf of Carpentaria—and depicting a humanlike figure holding a boomerang (right), surrounded by more boomerangs—it’s a type of stenciling that involved creating miniature outlines of humans, tools, and other shapes. Similar, much older mini-stencils have…
Science

[:es]Hungry bumble bees make plants flower early by cutting holes in their leaves[:]

When bumble bee queens emerge from hibernation, they need to gather pollen and nectar to start their new colonies. If they wake up too soon, there may not be enough flowers in bloom. Now, researchers have discovered the bees have a way to order some fast food: They nibble holes in leaves, spurring plants to…
Science

[:es]Cold War satellites inadvertently tracked species declines[:]

When the Soviet Union launched Sputnik into orbit in 1957, the United States responded with its own spy satellites. The espionage program, known as Corona, sought to locate Soviet missile sites, but its Google Earth–like photography captured something unintended: snapshots of animals and their habitats frozen in time. Now, by comparing these images with modern…
Science

[:es]How Venus flytraps evolved their taste for meat[:]

How does a plant develop a taste for flesh? In the play Little Shop of Horrors, all it takes is a drop of human blood. But in real life, it takes much more. Now, a study of three closely related carnivorous plants suggests dextrous genetic shuffling helped them evolve the ability to catch and digest…
Science

[:es]Can nuclear fallout make it rain?[:]

Radioactive fallout is rarely a good thing. But new research suggests charged particles emitted from Cold War–era nuclear tests may have boosted rainfall thousands of kilometers away from the testing sites, by triggering electrical charges in the air that caused water droplets to coalesce.
Science

[:es]New solar panels suck water from air to cool themselves down[:]

Like humans, solar panels don’t work well when overheated. Now, researchers have found a way to make them “sweat”—allowing them to cool themselves and increase their power output.
Science

[:es]Ancient DNA reveals staying power of early people of the Andes[:]

Some of the world’s more famous and closely examined archaeological sites pepper the hillsides of the Central Andes, documenting an invention of farming and the rise and fall of powerful civilizations such as the Inca. Now, the largest study of ancient human genomes in South America has added a personal touch to the artifacts. The…
Science

[:es]Ants store long- and short-term memories on different sides of their brains[:]

The left and right sides of our brains store different kinds of memories: The left side specializes in verbal information, for example, while the right side specializes in visual information. But it turns out we’re not the only ones. A new study suggests that ants—like humans, songbirds, and zebrafish—also store different memories in different sides…
Science

[:es]Three men were buried in Mexico 500 years ago. DNA and bones reveal their stories of enslavement[:]

In the late 1980s, workers excavating a new subway line in downtown Mexico City stumbled upon a long-lost cemetery. Documents showed it had once been connected to a colonial hospital built between 1529 and 1531—only about 10 years after the Spanish conquest of Mexico—for Indigenous patients. As archaeologists excavated the buried skeletons, three stood out.…