Animals
Mary Roach’s new book ‘Fuzz’ explores the ‘criminal’ lives of animals
In “Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law,” author Mary Roach profiles mugging monkeys, thieving bears and other animal outlaws.
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Cover Story
Cold plasma could transform the sustainable farms of the future
Physicists have been working on ways to use the power of plasma to boost plant growth and kill pathogens.
Reviews & Previews
Science Visualized
Planetary Science
See some of the most intriguing photos from NASA’s Perseverance rover so far
Six months ago, Perseverance landed on the Red Planet. Here’s what the rover has been observing.
Notebook
Life
Scientists have a new word for birds stealing animal hair
Dozens of YouTube videos show birds stealing hair from dogs, cats, humans, raccoons and even a porcupine — a behavior rarely documented by scientists.
Features
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Perspective-changing experiences, good or bad, can lead to richer lives
Happiness or meaning have long been seen as keys to the “good life.” Psychologists have now defined a third good life for people leading rich psychological lives.
More Stories from the September 11, 2021 issue
- Environment
50 years ago, chemical pollutants were linked to odd animal behavior
Fifty years after studies hinted that pollution interferes with how aquatic creatures communicate, scientists are still unraveling its myriad effects.
- Animals
A hammerhead shark baby boom near Florida hints at a historic nursery
Finding an endangered shark nursery in a vast ocean is like finding a needle in a haystack. But that’s just what scientists did near Miami.
- Astronomy
This moon-sized white dwarf is the smallest ever found
A newfound white dwarf is the smallest and perhaps the most massive known, and spins around once every seven minutes.
- Physics
Windbreaks, surprisingly, could help wind farms boost power output
Wind farm performance could be improved by 10 percent by using low barriers to increase the wind speed directed at the turbines, simulations suggest.
- Climate
The new UN climate change report shows there’s no time for denial or delay
Human-caused climate change is unequivocally behind extreme weather events from heat waves to floods to droughts, a massive new assessment concludes.
- Earth
Haiti’s citizen seismologists helped track its devastating quake in real time
Two scientists explain how citizen scientists and their work could help provide a better understanding of Haiti’s seismic hazards.
- Physics
With a powerful laser blast, scientists near a nuclear fusion milestone
A National Ignition Facility experiment spawned nuclear fusion reactions that released nearly as much energy as was used to ignite them.
- Space
Jupiter’s intense auroras superheat its upper atmosphere
Jupiter’s hotter-than-expected upper atmosphere may be caused by high-speed charged particles slamming into the air high above the poles.
- Health & Medicine
Ripples in rats’ brains tied to memory may also reduce sugar levels
Brain signals called sharp-wave ripples have an unexpected job: influencing the body’s sugar levels, a study in rats suggests.
- Science & Society
How extreme heat from climate change distorts human behavior
As temperatures rise, violence and aggression go up while focus and productivity decline. The well off can escape to cool spaces; the poor cannot.
- Genetics
An Indigenous people in the Philippines have the most Denisovan DNA
Genetic comparisons crown the Indigenous Ayta Magbukon people as having the most DNA, 5 percent, from the mysterious ancient hominids.
- Archaeology
A 1,000-year-old grave may have held a powerful nonbinary person
A medieval grave in Finland, once thought to maybe hold a respected woman warrior, may belong to someone who didn’t have a strictly male or female identity.
