Mathematician J. Ernest Wilkins Jr. was a Manhattan Project standout despite racism
The Manhattan Project brought together the finest scientific minds in the United States for one urgent purpose: to build an atomic bomb. That included...
SCIENTIFIC NEWS
50 years ago, UFO sightings in the United States went bust
What happened to UFOs? — Science News, June 26, 1971 Since 1968 the number of UFO sightings has dropped off, along with public interest...
New images clarify how glasswing butterflies make their wings transparent
Most butterflies sport colorful, eye-catching patterns on their wings. But some species, like the glasswing butterfly, use mostly transparent wings to hide in plain...
A satellite’s view of a deadly 2019 eruption could improve volcano monitoring
On December 9, 2019, a cloud of steam and volcanic gases blasted out of New Zealand’s Whakaari, or White Island, volcano. Relative to eruptions...
Controlling nerve cells with light opened new ways to study the brain
Some big scientific discoveries aren’t actually discovered. They are borrowed. That’s what happened when scientists enlisted proteins from an unlikely lender: green algae. Cells...
How one medical team is bringing COVID-19 vaccines to hard-to-reach Hispanic communities
PHILADELPHIA — In a makeshift tent behind a soccer goal and close enough to a taco stand that the smell of grilling barbacoa and...
Collapse may not always be inevitable for marine ice cliffs
When it comes to global warming and sea level rise, scientists have made some dire predictions. One of the most calamitous involves the widespread...
Physicists used LIGO’s mirrors to approach a quantum limit
Quantum mechanics usually applies to very small objects: atoms, electrons and the like. But physicists have now brought the equivalent of a 10-kilogram object...
A new book uses stories from tsunami survivors to decode deadly waves
TsunamiJames Goff and Walter DudleyOxford Univ., $34.95 On March 27, 1964, Ted Pederson was helping load oil onto a tanker in Seward, Alaska, when...
Dust and a cold spell on Betelgeuse could explain why the giant star dimmed
Astronomers around the world were startled in late 2019 when Betelgeuse, one of the brightest stars in the sky, grew dark for several months....
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