Science

Say “sit!” to your dog, and—if he’s a good boy—he’ll likely plant his rump on the floor. But would he respond correctly if the word were spoken by a stranger, or someone with a thick accent? A new study shows he will, suggesting dogs perceive spoken words in a sophisticated way long thought unique to…

Like vinyl records, the strange concept of a time crystal is spinning back into fashion. In 2012, a Nobel Prize–winning physicist proposed that the properties of a system of quantum particles might cycle in time much as a crystal’s pattern of atoms repeats in space, even without the addition of energy, making it a bit…

Reports of lung injuries from e-cigarettes splash across the news these days, but the nicotine-delivery devices are also spawning a quieter worry: whether users risk long-term health effects that may not manifest for decades. Studies in animals and people are now starting to probe whether e-cigarettes pose chronic risks to the lungs and cardiovascular system…

In a handful of cities around the world, mosquitoes have been armed with a microscopic weapon against disease. The bacterium Wolbachia pipientis blocks the insects’ ability to spread fearsome viruses such as dengue, Zika, and chikungunya. Since 2011, researchers have been injecting Wolbachia into the eggs of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes and releasing the hatched insects,…

Soon. That has long been scientists’ answer when asked about the approval of golden rice, a genetically modified (GM) crop that could help prevent childhood blindness and deaths in the developing world. Ever since golden rice first made headlines nearly 20 years ago, it has been a flashpoint in debates over GM crops. Advocates touted…

There is no force on Earth quite like a subduction zone. Slips along these faults, found where plates of dense ocean crust dive beneath continents, cause the world’s most destructive earthquakes and tsunamis: 1964 in Alaska; 2004 in Indonesia; 2011 in Japan. But much remains unknown about how those faults slip and stick between catastrophes.

Researchers say they have solved a long-standing mystery about Saturn’s tiny, frozen moon Enceladus: why its south pole features long, water-spewing geysers known as tiger stripes. The study could also help explain why these unique formations aren’t seen on any other satellite in the solar system.

Two thousand years ago, the streets of Rome bustled with people from all over the ancient world. The empire’s trade routes stretched from North Africa to Asia, and new immigrants poured in every day, both by choice and by force. Now, an ancient DNA study has shown those far-flung connections were written in the genomes…

In 2016, a 73-year-old woman from Medellín, Colombia, flew to Boston so researchers could scan her brain, analyze her blood, and pore over her genome. She carried a genetic mutation that had caused many in her family to develop dementia in middle age. But for decades, she had avoided the disease. The researchers now report…