Streetlights, especially super bright LEDs, may harm insect populations
Moths flock to streetlights, bewitched by their luminous brilliance. But bathing in brightness all night seems to have consequences for the grounded forms of...
SCIENTIFIC NEWS
These charts show that COVID-19 vaccines are doing their job
As the coronavirus continues to surge across the United States, hospitals are again filling up with ill COVID-19 patients. And the vast majority of...
‘On the Fringe’ explores the thin line between science and pseudoscience
On the FringeMichael D. GordinOxford Univ., $18.95 There is no such thing as pseudoscience, and Michael Gordin has written a book about it. In...
New ideas on what makes a planet habitable could reshape the search for life
When considering where to look for extraterrestrial life, astronomers have mostly stuck with what’s familiar. The best candidates for habitable planets are considered the...
50 years ago, astronomers were chipping away at Pluto’s mass
The shrinking mass of Pluto — Science News, August 28, 1971 Pluto was the last of the planets to be discovered (in 1930). If...
An incredibly resilient coral in the Great Barrier Reef offers hope for the future
A coral the size of a carousel is the widest known in the Great Barrier Reef. Found just off the coast of Goolboodi Island...
Gender-affirming care improves mental health for transgender youth
Daniel’s birth certificate is marked “female,” but Daniel is nonbinary — not exclusively male nor female. “I’m masculine leaning,” says the 18-year-old. The disconnect...
Female hummingbirds may sport flashy feathers to avoid being harassed
Some female hummingbirds don flashy feathers to avoid being bothered by other hummingbirds, a new study suggests. Male white-necked jacobin hummingbirds (Florisuga mellivora) have...
Physicists caught protons ‘surfing’ on shock waves
Protons can surf some truly gnarly waves. A new experiment suggests that the subatomic particles can be accelerated by a process akin to surfers...
This big-headed pterosaur may have preferred walking over flying
In 2013, a police raid at Santos Harbor in Brazil recovered about 30,000 smuggled fossils, including the most intact specimen of a type of...
A new treatment could restore some mobility in people paralyzed by strokes 
What has Perseverance found in two years on Mars? 
This robot automatically tucks its limbs to squeeze through spaces 
Greta Thunberg’s new book urges the world to take climate action now