The Parker Solar Probe is the first spacecraft to visit the Sun’s atmosphere (Dec 2021)

2021 research reinforced that mating across groups drove human evolution (Dec 2021)

Cleared tropical forests can regain ground surprisingly fast (Dec 2021)

Physicists have coaxed ultracold atoms into an elusive form of quantum matter (Dec 2021)

Invasive grasses are taking over the American West’s sea of sagebrush (Dec 2021)

This tiny, sizzling exoplanet could be made of molten iron (Dec 2021)

Ancient giant orangutans evolved smaller bodies surprisingly slowly (Dec 2021)

Fungi may be crucial to storing carbon in soil as the Earth warms (Nov 2021)

Corals may store a surprising amount of microplastics in their skeletons (Nov 2021)

Researchers have unlocked the secret to pearls’ incredible symmetry (Nov 2021)

Some songbirds now migrate east to west. Climate change may play a role (Nov 2021)

Earth’s lower atmosphere is rising due to climate change (Nov 2021)

Neutron star collisions probably make more gold than other cosmic smashups (Nov 2021)

Lithium-ion batteries made with recycled materials can outlast newer counterparts (Nov 2021)

Vikings lived in North America by at least the year 1021 (Oct 2021)

Earth is reflecting less light. It’s not clear if that’s a trend (Oct 2021)

A Jupiter-like planet orbiting a white dwarf hints at our solar system’s future (Oct 2021)

Giant ground sloths may have been meat-eating scavengers (Oct 2021)

Space rocks may have bounced off baby Earth, but slammed into Venus (Oct 2021)

An easier, greener way to build molecules wins the chemistry Nobel Prize (Oct 2021)

Discovering how we sense temperature and touch wins the 2021 medicine Nobel Prize (Oct 2021)

A volcano-induced rainy period made Earth’s climate dinosaur-friendly (Sep 2021)

These colorful butterflies were created using transparent ink (Sep 2021)

‘Ghost tracks’ suggest people came to the Americas earlier than once thought (Sep 2021)

Fossil tracks may reveal an ancient elephant nursery (Sep 2021)

Australian fires in 2019–2020 had even more global reach than previously thought (Sep 2021)

Potty-trained cattle could help reduce pollution (Sep 2021)

A supernova’s delayed reappearance could pin down how fast the universe expands (Sep 2021)

A newfound boa sports big eyes and a square nose (Sep 2021)

Clouds affected by wildfire smoke may produce less rain (Sep 2021)

A pinch of saturated fat could make tempering chocolate a breeze (Sep 2021)

Some wasps’ nests glow green under ultraviolet light (Sep 2021)

Stone Age humans or their relatives occasionally trekked through a green Arabia (Sep 2021)

New ideas on what makes a planet habitable could reshape the search for life (Aug 2021)

An incredibly resilient coral in the Great Barrier Reef offers hope for the future (Aug 2021)

Climate change made Europe’s flash floods in July more likely (Aug 2021)

With a powerful laser blast, scientists near a nuclear fusion milestone (Aug 2021)

Sunbirds’ dazzling feathers are hot, in both senses of the word (Aug 2021)

Ripples in rats’ brains tied to memory may also reduce sugar levels (Aug 2021)

Windbreaks, surprisingly, could help wind farms boost power output (Aug 2021)

Colliding photons were spotted making matter. But are the photons ‘real’? (Aug 2021)

Squirrels use parkour tricks when leaping from branch to branch (Aug 2021)

A lunar magnetic field may have lasted for only a short time (Aug 2021)

Greece’s Santorini volcano erupts more often when sea level drops (Aug 2021)

Viruses can kill wasp larvae that grow inside infected caterpillars (Aug 2021)

The tiny dot in this image may be the first look at exomoons in the making (Jul 2021)

A stunning visualization of Alaska’s Yukon Delta shows a land in transition (Jul 2021)

What experts know so far about COVID-19 boosters for immunocompromised people (Jul 2021)

The latest picture of a black hole captures Centaurus A’s massive jets (Jul 2021)

Lakes of liquid water at Mars’ southern ice cap may just be mirages (Jul 2021)

Insects had flashy, noise-making wings as early as 310 million years ago (Jul 2021)

Hurricanes may not be becoming more frequent, but they’re still more dangerous (Jul 2021)

Ancient human bones reveal the oldest known strain of the plague (Jul 2021)

How antibodies may cause rare blood clots after some COVID-19 vaccines (Jul 2021)

A tweaked yeast can make ethanol from cornstalks and a harvest’s other leftovers (Jul 2021)

Human-driven climate change sent Pacific Northwest temperatures soaring (Jul 2021)

For some dinosaurs, the Arctic may have been a great place to raise a family (Jun 2021)

Cosmic filaments may be the biggest spinning objects in space (Jun 2021)

A satellite’s view of a deadly 2019 eruption could improve volcano monitoring (Jun 2021)

Dust and a cold spell on Betelgeuse could explain why the giant star dimmed (Jun 2021)

Many cosmetics contain hidden, potentially dangerous ‘forever chemicals’ (Jun 2021)

A widely studied lab plant has revealed a previously unknown organ (Jun 2021)

Scientists have found the origins of a mysterious, deadly flood in India (Jun 2021)

New clues suggest people reached the Americas around 30,000 years ago (Jun 2021)

Auroras form when electrons from space ride waves in Earth’s magnetic field (Jun 2021)

NASA will be heading back to Venus for the first time in decades (Jun 2021)

Newly recognized tricks help elephants suck up huge amounts of water (Jun 2021)

Even hard-to-kill tardigrades can’t always survive being shot out of a gun (Jun 2021)

Vaccinating people in developing countries costs far less than doing nothing (Jun 2021)

In a first, neutrinos were caught interacting at the Large Hadron Collider (May 2021)

The last 30 years were the hottest on record for the United States (May 2021)

Mammal brains may use the same circuits to control tongues and limbs (May 2021)

Record-breaking light has more than a quadrillion electron volts of energy (May 2021)

Elephants are dying in droves in Botswana. Scientists don't know why (May 2021)

Rivers might not be as resilient to drought as once thought (May 2021)

A study of Earth’s crust hints that supernovas aren’t gold mines (May 2021)

Saturn has a fuzzy core, spread over more than half the planet’s diameter (May 2021)

T. rex's incredible biting force came from its stiff lower jaw (May 2021)

Little Foot's shoulders hint at how a human-chimp common ancestor climbed (May 2021)

Lightning may be an important source of air-cleaning chemicals (Apr 2021)

Climate change may have changed the direction of the North Pole’s drift (Apr 2021)

The thickness of lead’s neutron ‘skin’ has been precisely measured (Apr 2021)

Mysterious ‘yellowballs’ littering the Milky Way are clusters of newborn stars (Apr 2021)

Experts predict U.S. COVID-19 cases will dip in summer but surge in winter (Apr 2021)

A new technique could make some plastic trash compostable at home (Apr 2021)

Earth sweeps up 5,200 tons of extraterrestrial dust each year (Apr 2021)

The P.1 coronavirus variant is twice as transmissible as earlier strains (Apr 2021)

How researchers can keep birds safe as U.S. wind farms expand (Apr 2021)

Yawning helps lions synchronize their groups' movements (Apr 2021)

Newly made laser-cooled antimatter could test foundations of modern physics (Apr 2021)

The dinosaur-killing asteroid impact radically altered Earth's tropical forests (Apr 2021)

A toxin behind mysterious eagle die-offs may have finally been found (Mar 2021)

Atomic clocks take a step toward redefining the second (Mar 2021)

AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine isn't tied to blood clots, experts say (Mar 2021)

A gargantuan supernova remnant looks 40 times as big as the full moon (Mar 2021)

Phosphorus for Earth’s earliest life may have been forged by lightning (Mar 2021)

Some COVID-19 survivors face another foe: PTSD (Mar 2021)

A magnetic trap captures elusive ultracold plasma (Mar 2021)

To understand how ‘night-shining’ clouds form, scientists made one themselves (Mar 2021)

Most pro athletes who got COVID-19 didn’t develop heart inflammation (Mar 2021)

‘Green’ burials are slowly gaining ground among environmentalists (Mar 2021)

An ancient dog fossil helps trace humans’ path into the Americas (Mar 2021)

Protons’ antimatter is even more lopsided than we thought (Feb 2021)

Color-coded radar maps reveal a patchwork of California wildfire destruction (Feb 2021)

A magnetic field reversal 42,000 years ago may have contributed to mass extinctions (Feb 2021)

The first black hole ever discovered is more massive than previously thought (Feb 2021)

Some Neandertal genes in people today may protect against severe COVID-19 (Feb 2021)

Pfizer’s vaccine appears to reduce coronavirus transmission (Feb 2021)

A drop in CFC emissions puts the hole in the ozone layer back on track to closing (Feb 2021)

Fossil mimics may be more common in ancient rocks than actual fossils (Feb 2021)

‘Designer molecules’ could create tailor-made quantum devices (Feb 2021)

A new chameleon species may be the world’s tiniest reptile (Feb 2021)

An upwelling of rock beneath the Atlantic may drive continents apart (Feb 2021)

The Milky Way’s newfound high-energy glow hints at the secrets of cosmic rays (Feb 2021)

Ship exhaust studies overestimate cooling from pollution-altered clouds (Feb 2021)

Diabetes during pregnancy is tied to heart trouble later in life (Feb 2021)

Diamond holds up at pressures more than five times those in Earth’s core (Jan 2021)

Astronomers spotted a rare galaxy shutting down star formation (Jan 2021)

Some electric eels coordinate attacks to zap their prey (Jan 2021)

2020 and 2016 tie for the hottest years on record (Jan 2021)

Drones could help create a quantum internet (Jan 2021)

Newborn megalodon sharks were larger than most adult humans (Jan 2021)

Reawakened Yellowstone geyser isn’t a sign of imminent explosion (Jan 2021)

Some identical twins don’t have identical DNA (Jan 2021)

This weird chemical bond acts like a mash-up of hydrogen and covalent bonds (Jan 2021)

Zinc-air batteries are typically single-use. A new design could change that (Jan 2021)

These spiders may sew leaves into fake shelters to lure frogs to their doom (Jan 2021)