Tech
‘Pipe Dreams’ flushes out hope in an unexpected place: the toilet
A new book shows how reimagined toilets will allow humans to use pee and poop as natural resources.
-
Cover Story
How matter’s hidden complexity unleashed the power of nuclear physics
In the last century, physicists learned to split atomic nuclei and revealed a complex world of fundamental particles.
Reviews & Previews
Science Visualized
Microbes
Archaea microbes fold, twist and contort their DNA in extreme ways
Single-celled archaea open and close their Slinky-like genetic material in a clamshell motion, possibly providing easy access to their genes.
Notebook
Animals
A sea slug’s detached head can crawl around and grow a whole new body
Chopped-up planarians regrow whole bodies from bits and pieces. But a sea slug head can regrow fancier organs such as hearts.
Features
-
Wildfires launch microbes into the air. How big of a health risk is that?
How does wildfire smoke move bacteria and fungi — and what harm might they do to people when they get there?
More Stories from the April 10, 2021 issue
- Physics
A tiny gold ball is the smallest object to have its gravity measured
A gold sphere with a mass of about 90 milligrams pulled on another sphere in accordance with Newton’s law of universal gravitation.
- Environment
The world wasted nearly 1 billion metric tons of food in 2019
A new United Nations global food waste report shows where waste can be reduced, which would decrease hunger and greenhouse gas emissions.
- Space
Most of Mars’ missing water may lurk in its crust
Computer simulations of the fate of Mars’ water may explain why the Red Planet turned into a desert, when so little of its water has escaped into space.
- Earth
Phosphorus for Earth’s earliest life may have been forged by lightning
Lightning strikes can supply one of life’s essential elements, long thought to be delivered by meteorites billions of years ago.
- Health & Medicine
The latest Ebola outbreak may have started with someone infected years ago
Rather than stemming from a virus that jumped from an animal to a person, this outbreak might have originated from someone who had a dormant virus.
- Health & Medicine
A deadly fungus behind hospital outbreaks was found in nature for the first time
Learning where the fungus Candida auris thrives in nature could help reveal why this yeast is dangerous to humans.
- Anthropology
Riches in a Bronze Age grave suggest it holds a queen
Researchers have long assumed mostly men ran ancient Bronze Age societies, but the find points to a female ruler in Spain 3,700 years ago.
- Physics
Can room-temperature superconductors work without extreme pressure?
The next generation of materials that conduct electricity with no resistance could shrug off the need for high pressure and low temperatures.
- Astronomy
A gargantuan supernova remnant looks 40 times as big as the full moon
New observations confirm that a cloud in the constellation Antlia really is a supernova remnant and the largest ever seen from Earth.
- Animals
Female green tree frogs have noise-canceling lungs that help them hear mates
When inflated, female green tree frog lungs resonate in a way that reduces sensitivity to the sounds of other species.
- Animals
Two bonobos adopted infants outside their group, marking a first for great apes
Female bonobos in a reserve in the Congo took care of orphaned infants — feeding, carrying and cuddling them — for at least one year.
- Animals
Cone snail venom may trick mate-seeking worms into becoming meals
Cone snail venom contains worm pheromone mimics, suggesting the chemicals may be used to lure worms during hunting.
- Animals
A year after Australia’s wildfires, extinction threatens hundreds of species
As experts piece together a fuller picture of the scale of damage to wildlife, more than 500 species may need to be listed as endangered.
- Science & Society
A new book explores how military funding shaped the science of oceanography
In ‘Science on a Mission,’ science historian Naomi Oreskes argues that funding from the U.S. Navy both facilitated and stymied marine research.
- Science & Society
50 years ago, the United States wanted to deflate the helium stockpile
An attempt to dismantle the Federal Helium Reserve in 1971 failed. Fifty years later, the U.S. government is still determined to run out of gas.
