Science
Discover facts about science. Small discoveries that change the way you see familiar things.
Science
The microbes painting the desert black and red
That dark desert coating isn’t just dust: microbes help concentrate manganese into a thin layer on the rock. It accumulates slowly, and beneath it the stone…
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The salt crystals that preserve living microbes
A salt crystal can seal tiny pockets of salty water inside it, keeping some salt-loving microbes cut off from the outside. Some have reportedly stayed dormant…
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Ryugu is a dark asteroid with samples we can study on Earth
Hayabusa2 returned material from the carbon-rich asteroid, letting researchers compare laboratory measurements with what the spacecraft saw remotely. Its low…
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Scientists found a dinosaur's rusty-red camouflage
The fossil’s darker back and paler underside suggest a camouflage pattern called countershading. A light belly can soften the shadows that would otherwise…
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A laser can cool atoms instead of heating them
Tune the light correctly and atoms moving toward it absorb photons that give them tiny opposing pushes. Repeating that process slows the atoms down; less…
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Bacteria communicate with electrical pulses
When nutrients run low, Bacillus subtilis can send electrical pulses through waves of potassium ions, a charged ingredient inside cells. Those signals help…
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Scientists found an extra roommate inside lichens
Lichens are usually introduced as a fungus living with an alga or cyanobacterium. In 2016, researchers identified yeasts embedded in the outer layer of many…
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The plant that changes traits without changing its DNA
A plant can change how a flower looks without changing the DNA letters. In toadflax, small chemical groups attach to DNA and make a gene harder for the cell…
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Permafrost is a freezer with a very imperfect seal on the past
Cold slows the decay of remains and DNA, allowing material to survive far longer than it would in a warm environment. But DNA still breaks into fragments and…
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Why island finches disrupt the evolutionary clock
A molecular clock is only useful if its ticks keep a steady pace. If different island finch lineages change genetically at different speeds, their DNA can…
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Dust in plasma can form floating crystals
In a plasma crystal, dust grains are large enough to see and track individually. As they shift, gaps and defects move through the pattern on camera, letting…
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Can buried grids steer earthquakes around buildings
A proposed seismic cloak would use buried patterns to scatter or redirect earthquake waves before they reach a building. Like ripples meeting a shaped…
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Salt could give Martian water a brief liquid loophole
Certain salts can absorb moisture and lower the temperature at which water freezes, creating the possibility of extremely cold brines. On Mars, pressure,…
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What frozen rat brains reveal about neural wiring
A neuron passes messages by releasing tiny chemical-filled packets called synaptic vesicles. Images of frozen rat brain show those packets gathered unevenly…
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How static electricity helped build planets
Before planets had gravity to gather things efficiently, dust grains could pick up electric charges when they collided. Grains with suitable charges could…
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A glass sponge can build a lifetime home for a pair of shrimp
The Venus flower basket grows a lattice-like skeleton made from silica. Young shrimp can enter through its openings and later grow too large to leave, while…
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Why quantum dots suddenly go dark
A quantum dot glows when an energized electron drops to a lower-energy state and releases a photon of light. But a charge trapped at the dot’s surface can…
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Your cells can tie RNA into tiny knots
A sequence rich in the RNA letter guanine can fold back on itself into a small, stacked knot called a G-quadruplex. When protein-making machinery reaches that…
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Invisible volcanic ash turns a peat bog into a dated archive
Microscopic volcanic-glass fragments can survive in peat far from an eruption. Researchers compare their chemistry with known ash deposits, linking layers in…
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A huge electron cloud can bind another atom inside it
Exciting an atom's outer electron can spread its cloud over a volume enormous by atomic standards. At extremely low temperatures, another atom can become…
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An LCD screen can go dark where its molecules lose alignment
Liquid crystals control how light passes through the screen by lining up in particular ways. A defect in that alignment can disrupt the light and create a…
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How scientists scan Earth's core without digging
IceCube does not peer through Earth like a giant flashlight. It counts neutrinos arriving from different directions: those that pass through the denser core…
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These microscopic algae build armor from glass
A diatom takes silica from seawater and builds a hard, detailed shell around its single cell. The shell comes in two overlapping pieces, like a box whose lid…
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Boiling vent archaea armor themselves in ether lipids
Near-boiling water would destabilize many cell membranes, but the heat-loving archaeon Pyrococcus furiosus has membranes built with durable ether bonds. Those…
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