Nancy Shute

Dec 19, 2024 | sciencenews.org | Nancy Shute

Each year we dedicate the final issue of Science News to reviewing the big stories in science, technology and medicine. And each year, I marvel at the many significant news events and research discoveries crammed into a year. Most significant: The growing tyranny of heat. For the second year in a row, our planet experienced the hottest year on record, a fact that threatened lives worldwide. In some places, the heat sparked drought, which lowered city water supplies and fueled wildfires.

Nov 29, 2024 | sciencenews.org | Nancy Shute

The human body is a marvel of engineering, but it’s a machine that requires maintenance and repair. At times, that means trying to replace parts lost to injury or illness. The oldest known prosthesis is the “Cairo toe,” crafted out of wood and leather and thought to be 2,700 to 3,000 years old. Its flexibility as well as signs that it was repaired multiple times suggest that it wasn’t built just for appearance — it helped the person walk.

Nov 15, 2024 | sciencenews.org | Nancy Shute

Since her public debut in 1978, Lucy has been on a first-name basis with the world. Not bad for someone from rural Ethiopia who had been an unknown for 3.2 million years or so. Paleoanthropologists Donald Johanson and Tom Gray had discovered Lucy’s fossilized bones a few years earlier (SN: 1/4/75, p. 4). That spectacular moment 50 years ago quickly upended how many scientists thought about human evolution.

Nov 1, 2024 | sciencenews.org | Nancy Shute

Those of us who grew up in Western cultures tend to think of archaeology as the study of a place — a point on the map where edifices or artifacts tell us something important about past people and cultures. Archaeologists have tended to think this way, too. A site is identified; excavation ensues. Artifacts are discovered. The artifacts are studied, inventoried and carefully stored so that they will be available to the archaeologists of the future.

Oct 18, 2024 | sciencenews.org | Nancy Shute

Concern about the health of democratic governments has been rising worldwide, and one of the key metrics researchers use to measure the robustness of a democracy is its ability to conduct free and fair elections. With the United States in the midst of a polarized presidential election, we here at Science News have taken a close look at the science of studying democracies and what characteristics make them strong — or can destabilize them.