Microbiology
A Remote-Controlled Carnivorous Plant?
Researchers design an artificial neuron that can trigger closure of a Venus flytrap.
Stories by Karen Hopkin
Diversity
Female CEOs Change How Firms Talk about Women
Appointing women to leadership positions renders organizations more likely to describe all women as being powerful, persistent and bold.
Animals
Hedgehogs Host the Evolution of Antibiotic Resistance
Bacteria resistant to methicillin emerged in hedgehogs long before the drug was prescribed to treat infections.
Animals
Meerkats Are Getting Climate Sick
For meerkats in the Kalahari Desert, rising temperatures spark deadly outbreaks of tuberculosis.
Neurology
Science Finally Has a Good Idea about Why We Stutter
A glitch in speech initiation gives rise to the repetition that characterizes stuttering.
Neuroscience
Does This Look like a Face to You?
Science—and experience—show that we most definitely see faces in inanimate objects. But new research finds that, more often than not, we perceive those illusory faces as male...
Culture
Researchers Analyzed Folk Music like It Was Mutating DNA: They Found Amazing Parallels between Life and Art
Using software designed to align DNA sequences, scientists cataloged the mutations that arose as folk songs evolved
Language
What Is the Shape of This Word?
What shape do you see when you hear “ bouba ”? What about “ kiki ”? It turns out that nonsense words that evoke certain shapes have something to say about the origins of language...
Physiology
The Surprising Physics of Finger Snapping
You might not think that you can generate more body acceleration than a big-league baseball pitcher, but new research shows you can.
Robotics
To Better Persuade a Human, a Robot Should Use This Trick
A new study finds that, for robots, overlords are less persuasive than peers.
Animals
These Bugs Produce Smelly Defenses That Need to Be Heard to Be Believed
You read that right. Researchers have taken the chemical defenses of some insects and turned them into sounds, which, it turns out, repel people just as well.
Animals
How Can an Elephant Squeak Like a Mouse?
New research using a camera that can “see" sound” shows some elephants can produce high-pitched buzzing with their lips.
Animals
Night Flights Are No Sweat for Tropical Bees
New research uses night vision to see how nocturnal bees navigate the dark.
Dinosaurs
Dinosaurs Lived—and Made Little Dinos—in the Arctic
New research shows that the prehistoric giants were even cooler than we thought
Neuroscience
A Car Crash Snaps the Daydreaming Mind into Focus
One researcher’s poorly timed attention lapse flipped a car—and pushed science forward.
Paleontology
The Incredible, Reanimated 24,000-Year-Old Rotifer
The last time this tiny wheel animalcule was moving around, woolly mammoths roamed the earth.
Evolution
Moths Have an Acoustic Invisibility Cloak to Stay under Bats’ Radar
New research finds they fly around on noise-cancelling wings
Fitness
Your Brain Does Something Amazing between Bouts of Intense Learning
New research shows that lightning-quick neural rehearsal can supercharge learning and memory.
Evolution
Animal Kids Listen to Their Parents Even before Birth
Human children: please take note of the behavior of prebirth zebra finches
Evolution
Puppies Understand You Even at a Young Age, Most Adorable Study of the Year Confirms
Researchers in the happiest lab in the world tested 375 pups and found they connected with people by eight weeks
