Leonardo da Vinci’s rule for how trees branch was close, but wrong
Leonardo da Vinci was wrong about trees. The multitalented, Renaissance genius wrote down his “rule of trees” over 500 years ago. It described the...
SCIENTIFIC NEWS
Antibiotics diminish babies’ immune response to key vaccines
Taking antibiotics in the first two years of life can prevent babies from developing a robust immune response to certain vaccines. The new finding...
All of the bases in DNA and RNA have now been found in meteorites
More of the ingredients for life have been found in meteorites. Space rocks that fell to Earth within the last century contain the five...
Why you should care about ‘The Insect Crisis’
The Insect CrisisOliver MilmanW.W. Norton & Co., $27.95 Imagine a world without insects. You might breathe a sigh of relief at the thought of...
This camera lens can focus up close and far away at the same time
Ben Franklin had nothing on trilobites. Roughly 400 million years before the founding father invented bifocals, the now extinct trilobite Dalmanitina socialis already had...
These male spiders catapult away to avoid being cannibalized after sex
An act of acrobatics keeps males of one orb-weaving spider species from becoming their mates’ post-sex snack. After mating, Philoponella prominens males catapult away...
‘The Last Days of the Dinosaurs’ tells a tale of destruction and recovery
The Last Days of the DinosaursRiley BlackSt. Martin’s Press, $28.99 Some 66 million years ago, give or take several millennia, a 10-kilometer-wide asteroid slammed...
Gravitational waves gave a new black hole a high-speed ‘kick’
This black hole really knows how to kick back. Scientists recently observed two black holes that united into one, and in the process got...
Glowing spider fossils may exist thanks to tiny algae’s goo
The secret ingredient for fossil preservation at a famous French site wouldn’t be found in a Julia Child cookbook. It was a sticky goo...
The Large Hadron Collider has restarted with upgraded proton-smashing potential
After a hiatus of more than three years, the Large Hadron Collider is back. Scientists shut down the particle accelerator in 2018 to allow...
WHO chief voices concern over Trump Administration’s executive order on vaccines 
Cholera spreads across borders in West and Central Africa 
Sudan: Attacks and further displacement in Blue Nile and North Kordofan 
Migrant deaths climb sharply in 2026, new UN data shows