Advances

Mental math shortcuts suggest future STEM performance—and gender is a significant predictor

A massive bloom of rimu berries fueled a mating surge among the world’s heaviest (and strangest) parrots

Thousands of markings on objects made around 40,000 years ago may have been more than just doodles, a new analysis suggests

Newborn chicks connect sounds with shapes just like humans, suggesting deep evolutionary roots of the “bouba-kiki” effect

Sum up the circles in this math puzzle

This enormous chain of hundreds of galaxies—a cosmic filament—is twisting through space 400 million light-years away

Axolotls can completely rebuild their thymus, a key immune organ

Researchers used a browser extension to reorder people’s X feeds, reducing their polarizing effect

Pachyderm whiskers are more flexible at the tip than at the base, allowing elephants to complete delicate tasks with their incredibly strong trunk

Speech blurs together unless you know the language; scientists found the brain signal that separates the words

A new tool expands the ways people can prove they’ve solved a problem without revealing the solution

Earthquake swarms can supercharge microbial growth