Science

For most mammals, size matters: Large ones, such as elephants and whales, live far longer than small ones like rodents. But among dogs, that rule is reversed. Tiny Chihuahuas, for example, can live up to 15 years—8 years longer than their much larger cousins, Great Danes. Now, a team of undergraduates may be closer to…

Babies born prematurely are prone to problems later in life—they’re more likely to develop autism or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and more likely to struggle in school. A new study that’s among the first to investigate brain activity in human fetuses suggests that the underlying neurological issues may begin in the womb. The findings provide…

Scientists have developed a new method for wringing CO2 estimates from fossilized leaves—one that can go deeper into the past, and with more certainty.

In the largest study of its kind, a research team has meshed extensive genome data on more than 50,000 people with their electronic health records and identified potential new disease-causing genes. The data further suggest that about one in 250 people may harbor a gene variant that puts them at risk for heart attacks and…

This isn’t a photo of the Milky Way; it’s a deep, dark cave in New Zealand. And those blue things aren’t stars; they’re maggots. A chemical reaction in their Malpighian tubules—structures analogous to kidneys—makes their posteriors glow, much to the delight of more than 200,000 tourists who visit them every year.

Floating out by themselves in the Milky Way galaxy are perhaps a billion cold brown dwarfs, objects many times as massive as Jupiter but not big enough to ignite as a star. According to a new study, layers of their upper atmospheres sit at temperatures and pressures resembling those on Earth, and could host microbes…

Students taking the most challenging math and science courses in their senior year were found to have performed progressively worse as they moved from elementary to middle to high school.

Next month, at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, California, a team of Dutch scientists will announce a catalog of 100 subducted plates, with information about their age, size, and related surface rock records, based on their own tomographic model and cross-checks with other published studies.

Every day, space is filled with thousands of mysterious bursts of radio energy, enormous flashes that typically pack as much energy into a few milliseconds as the sun emits in all wavelengths in half a day. Nobody knows what causes these fast radio bursts (FRBs), but theories include such dramatic possibilities as colliding neutron stars…