Animals
These Sharks Hold Their ‘Breath’ to Stay Warm
Scalloped hammerhead sharks take dramatic dives to hunt for food in cold, deep waters—and new evidence suggests they hold their breath to keep warm while they do so
Stories by Meghan Bartels
Food
Tweaking Vegetables’ Genes Could Make Them Tastier—And You’ll Get to Try Them Soon
Flavor is a tricky target, but technology and powerful genetic techniques are making it more feasible to improve the taste of vegetables
Space Exploration
SpaceX Faces Reckoning after Starship’s Messy First Flight
SpaceX’s Starship launch site in southern Texas is now the subject of a lawsuit after the vehicle’s first flight caused concerning damage
Oceans
Bizarre Blue ‘Jellyfish’ Washing Up on California Beaches Are a Sign of Spring
’Tis the season for hordes of blue jellyfishlike creatures to wash up on California beaches
Space Exploration
Japanese Moon Landing Attempt Falls Short as Spacecraft Goes Silent
With an apparent crash, the HAKUTO-R mission from the private space exploration company ispace has joined a long list of failed moon landers
Epidemiology
This Cow and Pig Influenza Virus Could Infect Humans: What We Know So Far
Influenza D is only known to sicken cattle and pigs, but it “has everything it needs” to jump into people
Space Exploration
SpaceX’s Starship Fails Upward in Milestone Test
Starship, a super powerful launch system that could revolutionize access to space, soared for mere minutes—but its test flight is still being hailed as a success
Animals
How Do Birds Know When to Migrate?
Lengthening days set off a cascade of events in migratory birds that culminates in the birth of a clutch of chicks
Oceans
Surprising Creatures Lurk in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch
In the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, plastic creates strange communities that bring coastal and open-ocean animals together
Black Holes
See the Sharp New Image of an Iconic Black Hole
Using machine learning, researchers have now created a much sharper portrait of the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy M87
Public Health
How Over-the-Counter Narcan Can Help Reverse Opioid Overdoses
A recent Food and Drug Administration decision that makes naloxone available without a prescription may increase the drug’s accessibility. But cost could be a barrier
Astronomy
Science Has New Ideas about ‘Oumuamua’s Weirdness
Our first known interstellar visitor is now long gone, but new research has some ideas about why it moved the way it did while it was in our cosmic neighborhood.
Artificial Intelligence
How to Tell If a Photo Is an AI-Generated Fake
Artificial-intelligence-powered image-generating systems are making fake photographs so hard to detect that we need AI to catch them
Planetary Science
Asteroid Didymos May Spin So Fast It Flings Rocks into Space
The asteroid Didymos witnessed its companion get slammed by NASA’s DART spacecraft, and Didymos itself may have interesting activity
Pharmaceuticals
Eye Drops Recalled after Deaths and Blindness—Here’s What to Know
Here’s how to tell whether your eye drops are safe to use and how to recognize a potential infection
Astronomy
Was ‘Oumuamua, the First Known Interstellar Object, Less Weird Than We Thought?
A new study suggests that ‘Oumuamua, the mysterious visitor that whizzed through our solar system in 2017, may have been merely a small comet from another star
Animals
The Strange Way a 12-Foot-Long Invasive Python Was Caught
In Key Largo, Fla., scientists are looking to protect endangered native rodents and slow the invasion of massive Burmese pythons
Oceans
Here’s the Real Story behind the Massive ‘Blob’ of Seaweed Heading toward Florida
Florida beaches are already receiving hefty batches of brown seaweed, kicking off a year that could break records
Reproduction
Mice with Two Fathers? Researchers Develop Egg Cells from Male Mice
Recent research offers a tantalizing glimpse at a future in which two men can have biological children together, but any human applications remain in the distant future
Animals
Scientists Have ID’d the Worm in Your Mescal
A team of moth and butterfly scientists decided to go from a restaurant bar to the lab bench to understand mescal’s iconic “worm”
