‘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...
SCIENTIFIC NEWS
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...
Ancient DNA shows the peopling of Southeast Asian islands was surprisingly complex
A young woman who lived on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi as early as around 7,300 years ago had a surprisingly ancient East Asian...
Racism lurks in names given to plants and animals. That’s starting to change
With lemon and black plumage, the Scott’s oriole flashes in the desert like a flame. But the bird’s name holds a violent history that...
Scientists may have seen dark matter. If they did, what exactly is it? 
One day behind bars: Students and incarcerated women break prison stigma in Thailand 
Sudan: Driver killed in aerial attack on aid trucks in South Kordofan 
UN upholds housing as a human right on World Habitat Day