Vol. 204 No. 7
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Science Visualized

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Features

More Stories from the November 4, 2023 issue

  1. Antimatter falls like matter, upholding Einstein’s theory of gravity

    In a first, scientists dropped antihydrogen atoms and measured how they fell.

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  2. Earth

    To form pink diamonds, build and destroy a supercontinent

    The Argyle deposit in Australia formed about 1.3 billion years ago, a study shows, along a rift zone that sundered the supercontinent Nuna.

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  3. Animals

    For the first time, researchers decoded the RNA of an extinct animal

    The Tasmanian tiger, or thylacine, was hunted nearly to extinction. Now RNA extracted from a museum specimen reveals how its cells functioned.

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  4. Archaeology

    Human footprints in New Mexico really may be surprisingly ancient, new dating shows

    Two dating methods find that human tracks in White Sands National Park in New Mexico are roughly 22,000 years old, aligning with a previous estimate.

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  5. Cosmology

    New JWST images suggest our understanding of the cosmos is flawed

    JWST data don’t resolve a disagreement over how fast the universe is expanding, suggesting we might need strange new physics to fix the tension.

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  6. Animals

    Gene editing can make chickens resistant to bird flu

    Chickens genetically modified to be impervious to avian influenza may one day prevent the spread of the disease on farms, a study suggests.

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  7. Chemistry

    The development of quantum dots wins the 2023 Nobel prize in chemistry

    Moungi Bawendi, Louis Brus and Alexei Ekimov split the prize for their work in creating nanoparticles whose properties depend on their size.

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  8. Physics

    Technique to see the ultrafast world of electrons wins 2023 physics Nobel

    Physicists Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz and Anne L’Huillier won for work creating light bursts that last billionths of a billionth of a second.

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  9. Health & Medicine

    Early mRNA research that led to COVID-19 vaccines wins 2023 medicine Nobel Prize

    Biochemists Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman devised mRNA modifications to make vaccines that trigger good immune responses instead of harmful ones.

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  10. Animals

    A global report finds amphibians are still in peril. But it’s not all bad news

    A survey of about 8,000 amphibian species provides the latest update on extinction risk trends stretching back to 1980.

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  11. Animals

    Seen Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster? Data suggest the odds are low

    Floe Foxon is a data scientist by day. But in his free time, he applies his skills to astronomy, cryptology and sightings of mythical creatures.

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  12. Planetary Science

    50 years ago, the first probe to visit Mercury launched

    In the 1970s, NASA’s Mariner 10 became the first spacecraft to visit Mercury. Only one other probe has made the journey and another one is on its way.

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  13. Physics

    Vela’s exploded star is the highest-energy pulsar ever seen

    A spinning dead star about 1,000 light-years away, in the constellation Vela, raises questions about how pulsars can emit such extreme radiation.

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  14. Health & Medicine

    Here’s how much coronavirus people infected with COVID-19 may exhale

    Just breathing naturally can lead people with COVID-19 to emit dozens of copies of viral RNA a minute and that can persist for eight days, a study finds.

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