Science

Highlights

  1. Trump Advisers Call for U.S. Nuclear Weapons Testing if He Is Elected

    A former national security adviser says Washington “must test new nuclear weapons for reliability and safety in the real world,” while critics say the move could incite a global arms race that heightens the risk of war.

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    A drop test of a B61 nuclear bomb. An aide to Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser said a redesign of this type of bomb, the B61-13, announced in October, was in need of explosive testing.
    CreditLos Alamos National Laboratory
  2. Earth Just Reached Its Greatest Distance From the Sun

    Our planet whirls around the sun in an ellipse, rather than a circle. On Friday the planet reached its farthest point from its star, known as aphelion.

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    How much the Earth’s orbit deviates from a perfect circle is measured by its eccentricity. The higher the eccentricity, the more elliptical the orbit.
    CreditTerry Virts/Johnson Space Center, via NASA
  1. How the Denisovans Survived the Ice Age

    A trove of animal bone fragments from a cave on the Tibetan plateau reveals how Denisovans thrived in a harsh climate for over 100,000 years.

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    Excavations at Baishiya Karst Cave on the Tibetan Plateau, where researchers say Denisovans lived for over 100,000 years, hunting or scavenging a wide range of animals that continue to live in the area.
    CreditDongju Zhang’s group/Lanzhou University
    Origins
  2. This Bigheaded Fossil Turned Up in a Place No One Expected to Find It

    An ancient aquatic predator resembling a giant salamander turned up in an African fossil deposit, suggesting unwritten chapters of how animals moved onto land.

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    An artist’s life reconstruction of Gaiasia jennyae, an eight-foot salamander-like predator that lived 280 million years ago.
    CreditGabriel Lio
    Trilobites
  3. Videos Show Ants Amputating Nest Mates’ Legs to Save Their Lives

    The insects seem to know which injuries to treat as they engage in a behavior that seems almost human.

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    CreditBart Zijlstra
    Trilobites
  4. The Rubik’s Cube Turns 50

    Mathematicians and hobbyists have had a half-century of fun exploring the 43 billion billion permutations of Erno Rubik’s creation.

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    “My method was understanding,” Erno Rubik said of the iconic twisty puzzle that he invented in 1974.
    CreditAkos Stiller for The New York Times
  5. How Science Went to the Dogs (and Cats)

    Pets were once dismissed as trivial scientific subjects. Today, companion animal science is hot.

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    Max, una mezcla de pastor alemán, malinois belga y husky de 2 años, fue fotografiado este mes en el parque Greenlake de Seattle. Max, un perro callejero que fue rescatado en un estado demacrado, participa en el Arca de Darwin, una iniciativa científica comunitaria que investiga la genética y el comportamiento de los animales.
    CreditM. Scott Brauer para The New York Times

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Pets

More in Pets ›
  1. How Science Went to the Dogs (and Cats)

    Pets were once dismissed as trivial scientific subjects. Today, companion animal science is hot.

     By

    Max, una mezcla de pastor alemán, malinois belga y husky de 2 años, fue fotografiado este mes en el parque Greenlake de Seattle. Max, un perro callejero que fue rescatado en un estado demacrado, participa en el Arca de Darwin, una iniciativa científica comunitaria que investiga la genética y el comportamiento de los animales.
    CreditM. Scott Brauer para The New York Times
  2. Their Job Is to Help You Grieve Your Pet

    Though still rare, social workers in animal hospitals are growing in their ranks.

     By Katie Thomas and

    Claire Johnson, a veterinary social worker, left, comforted Zorro, a 16-year-old cockapoo, as he was prepared for euthanasia at MedVet, a 24-hour pet care facility in Chicago.
    Credit
  3. The Pet ‘Superheroes’ Who Donate Their Blood

    Transfusions have become an important part of veterinary medicine, but cat and dog blood is not always easy to come by.

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    Jolie, a blood donor, giving blood at a DoveLewis Blood Bank in Portland, Ore., last month.
    CreditMichael Hanson for The New York Times
  4. Why You’re Paying Your Veterinarian So Much

    People have grown more attached to their pets — and more willing to spend money on them — turning animal medicine into a high-tech industry worth billions.

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    Heather Massey of Carlton, Ga., with her dog, Lunabear. She is still paying off a bill for scans and care six years after her previous dog, Ladybird, was diagnosed with brain cancer.
    CreditAudra Melton for The New York Times
  5. Are We Loving Our Pets to Death?

    Pet owners are treating their animal charges ever more like humans. But that isn’t good for pets, or for us, many experts argue.

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    The proliferation of dog strollers is one sign of a trend in which pets’ lives have become constrained and dependent on humans.
    CreditGraham Dickie/The New York Times

Trilobites

More in Trilobites ›
  1. A Trilobite Pompeii Preserves Exquisite Fossils in Volcanic Ash

    A fossil bed in the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco is allowing new insights into the anatomies of arthropods that lived a half-billion years ago.

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    A ventral view of the Protolenus species 3-D reconstruction.
    CreditArnaud Mazurier/University of Poitiers
  2. If You Give a Frog a Sauna, It Might Fight Off a Deadly Fungus

    A fatal fungal disease has devastated the world’s amphibians. But the fungus has a vulnerability: It cannot tolerate heat.

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    CreditAnthony Waddle
  3. Scientists Find First Evidence That Butterflies Crossed an Ocean

    Researchers discovered painted ladies on a South American beach and then built a case that they started their journey in Europe or Africa.

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    The painted lady butterfly is one of the world’s most widespread butterflies, normally moving between Europe and sub-Saharan Africa.
    CreditGerard Talavera
  4. Videos Show That Leeches Can Jump in Pursuit of Blood

    There has long been anecdotal evidence of the wormy creatures taking to the air, but videos recorded in Madagascar at last prove the animals’ acrobatics.

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    Credit
  5. Lokiceratops, a Horned Dinosaur, May Be a New Species

    Researchers analyzed a skull found in Montana of a plant-eating member of the ceratops family, finding distinct traits.

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    An artist’s reconstruction of Lokiceratops rangiformis, a new species of ceratopsian recovered from the badlands of northern Montana.
    CreditSergey Krasovskiy for the Museum of Evolution in Maribo, Denmark

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Origins

More in Origins ›
  1. How Flounder Wound Up With an Epic Side-Eye

    Flatfish offer an evolutionary puzzle: How did one eye gradually migrate to the other side?

     By

    Credit
  2. Do We Need Language to Think?

    A group of neuroscientists argue that our words are primarily for communicating, not for reasoning.

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    A network of regions become active when the brain retrieves words from memory, use rules of grammar, and carries out other language tasks.
    Creditvia Evelina Fedorenko
  3. Was This Sea Creature Our Ancestor? Scientists Turn a Famous Fossil on Its Head.

    Researchers have long assumed that a tube in the famous Pikaia fossil ran along the animal’s back. But a new study turned the fossil upside down.

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    The fossil of Pikaia, a creature that lived 508 million years ago and may have been a close relative of vertebrates.
    CreditMussini et al., Current Biology 2024
  4. Scientists Find the Largest Known Genome Inside a Small Plant

    A fern from a Pacific island carries 50 times as much DNA as humans do.

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    The fern’s cells contain more than 50 times as much DNA as ours do.
    CreditOriane Hidalgo
  5. Scientists Calculated the Energy Needed to Carry a Baby. Shocker: It’s a Lot.

    In humans, the energetic cost of pregnancy is about 50,000 dietary calories — far higher than previously believed, a new study found.

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    Researchers estimate that a human pregnancy demands almost 50,000 dietary calories over nine months, the equivalent of about 50 pints of ice cream.
    CreditDr. G. Moscoso/Science Source

Climate and Environment

More in Climate and Environment ›
  1. Can the Labour Party Bring Back Britain’s Green Groove?

    The new government, to be led by Labour, has pledged to fast-track a green energy transition. It will face big challenges.

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    Drivers navigating an “ultra low emission zone” in London.
    CreditYui Mok/PA Images, via Getty Images
  2. How Future Hurricanes Could Stress Power Grids of U.S. Cities

    A new analysis shows increasing frequency and intensity of hurricanes could cause more devastating interruptions to the power grid.

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    Darkened streets in New Orleans after Hurricane Ida made landfall in Louisiana in 2021 and knocked out power supplies.
    CreditJohnny Milano for The New York Times
  3. A Ban on Elephant Hunting Has Collapsed. Or Maybe It Never Existed.

    Five bulls from the area around a Kenyan wildlife reserve have been shot and killed in Tanzania in recent months. The countries have very different conservation strategies.

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    A bull elephant just outside Amboseli National Park in southern Kenya.
    CreditFredrik Lerneryd/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
  4. ‘A Roller Coaster in a Carwash’: Why Scientists Are Flying Into Hurricane Beryl

    Gathering data from directly inside the storm can help emergency managers prepare for what’s to come.

     By

    Inside the eye of Hurricane Beryl from the NOAA flight “Miss Piggy.”
    CreditKevin Doremus/NOAA
  5. As Solar Power Surges, U.S. Wind Is in Trouble

    A 2022 climate law was expected to set off a boom in renewable energy. So far, that’s only come partly true.

     By Brad Plumer and

    CreditThe New York Times

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  5. Why GPS Is Under Attack

    Satellite signals run the modern world. See just how vulnerable they are.

    By Selam Gebrekidan, K.K. Rebecca Lai, Pablo Robles and Jeremy White

     
  6. New Drug Approved for Early Alzheimer’s

    The drug, Kisunla, made by Eli Lilly, is the latest in a new class of treatments that could modestly slow cognitive decline in initial stages of the disease but also carry safety risks.

    By Pam Belluck

     
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