Ancient human bones reveal the oldest known strain of the plague
The oldest known strain of the plague-causing bacteria Yersinia pestis has been found lurking in the bones and teeth of a man buried thousands...
SCIENTIFIC NEWS
3 things to know about the record-smashing heat wave baking the Pacific Northwest
Like a lid on a steaming pot, a high-pressure system is sitting over the U.S. Pacific Northwest and British Columbia, Canada, sending temperatures in...
Gravitational waves reveal the first known mergers of a black hole and neutron star
Caught in a fatal inward spiral, a neutron star met its end when a black hole swallowed it whole. Gravitational ripples from that collision...
How COVID-19 vaccines were made so quickly without cutting corners
Six months after the first COVID-19 shots started going into arms in the United States, the pace of vaccination has slowed. That’s prompted White...
These beetles walk on water, upside down, underneath the surface
Being quite small, insects can have a very different relationship with the water-air interface than larger animals do. Surface tension allows for insects like...
An ecologist’s new book gets at the root of trees’ social lives
Finding the Mother TreeSuzanne SimardKnopf, $28.95 Opening Suzanne Simard’s new book, Finding the Mother Tree, I expected to learn about the old growth forests...
A proposed ‘quantum compass’ for songbirds just got more plausible
Scientists could be a step closer to understanding how some birds might exploit quantum physics to navigate. Researchers suspect that some songbirds use a...
Embryos appear to reverse their biological clock early in development
As people age, so do all of our cells, which accumulate damage over time. But why our offspring don’t inherit those changes — effectively...
‘Dragon Man’ skull may help oust Neandertals as our closest ancient relative
A fossil skull nicknamed “Dragon Man” has surfaced in China under mysterious circumstances, with big news for Neandertals. Dragon Man belonged to a previously...
Dark matter may slow the rotation of the Milky Way’s central bar of stars
Dark matter can be a real drag. The pull of that unidentified, invisible matter in the Milky Way may be slowing down the rotating...
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