Vol. 203 No. 2
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More Stories from the January 28, 2023 issue

  1. Humans

    50 years ago, scientists debated when humans first set foot in North America

    In 1973, archaeologists debated when people first arrived in the Americas. Mounting evidence suggests its much earlier than they thought.

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  2. Animals

    Scientists thought snakes didn’t have clitorises. They were wrong

    Snakes were long thought to be the only reptile group to lack clitorises. But new findings suggest the sex organs are present after all.

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  3. Life

    Sleeping glass frogs hide by storing most of their blood in their liver

    Glass frogs snoozing among leaves blend in by hiding almost all their red blood cells in their liver until the tiny animals wake up.

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  4. Physics

    We could get messages back from spacecraft sent through a wormhole

    A simulation of a probe sent to the other side of a wormhole shows it could send speedy messages back before the hole closes and the probe is lost.

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  5. Earth

    Indigenous people may have created the Amazon’s ‘dark earth’ on purpose

    Modern Amazonians make nutrient-rich soil from ash, food scraps and burns. The soil strongly resembles ancient dark soils found in the region.

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  6. Planetary Science

    The last vital ingredient for life has been discovered on Enceladus

    The underground ocean on Saturn’s icy moon may contain phosphorus in concentrations thousands of times greater than those found in Earth’s ocean.

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  7. Paleontology

    Mysterious ichthyosaur graveyard may have been a breeding ground

    Some 230 million years ago, massive dolphinlike reptiles gathered to breed in safe waters — just like many modern whales do, a study finds.

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  8. Archaeology

    Complex supply chains may have appeared more than 3,000 years ago

    Finds from one of the world’s oldest shipwrecks hint that miners in Central Asia and Turkey provided a crucial metal to Mediterranean rulers.

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  9. Science & Society

    Pandemic languishing is a thing. But is it a privilege?

    Positive psychologists contend that people can flourish if they try hard enough. But this pinnacle of well-being might not be so fully in our control.

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  10. Astronomy

    A bizarre gamma-ray burst breaks the rules for these cosmic eruptions

    The 50-second gamma-ray burst is the first that unambiguously breaks the rule that long bursts usually come from supernovas.

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  11. Paleontology

    Katydids had the earliest known insect ears 160 million years ago

    Fossils from the Jurassic Period show katydid ears looked identical to those of modern katydids and could pick up short-range calls.

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  12. Astronomy

    How the James Webb telescope’s glances back in time are reshaping cosmology

    The observatory has found dozens of galaxies from less than 550 million years after the Big Bang, suggesting galaxies formed faster than once thought.

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