Science News

Science News is a bi-weekly magazine in the United States that focuses on brief articles discussing the latest advancements in science and technology, often sourced from up-to-date scientific journals. This publication has been in circulation since 1922 and is produced by the Society for Science & the Public, a non-profit organization established by E. W. Scripps in 1920. Edwin Slosson, an American chemist, was the magazine's inaugural editor. Originally named Science News Letter from 1922 until 1966, the magazine rebranded to Science News starting with its March 12, 1966 issue (volume 89, number 11).

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Earth’s landmasses lost trillions of tons of water this century

3 days ago | sciencenews.org | Carolyn Gramling

Earth’s landmasses are holding onto a lot less water than they used to — and this loss is not just due to melting ice sheets. Terrestrial water storage, which includes water in underground aquifers, lakes, rivers and the tiny pore spaces within soil, declined by trillions of metric tons in the early 21st century, researchers report in the March 28 Science.
Ancient horse hunts challenge ideas of ‘modern’ human behavior

6 days ago | sciencenews.org | Bruce Bower

On a bright, late-summer day in north-central Europe around 300,000 years ago, a team of perhaps a couple dozen hunters got into their assigned positions for a big kill. Little did they know that remnants of this lethal event would someday contribute to a scientific rethink about the social and intellectual complexity of Stone Age life. Some of the hunters ascended a ridge where they gazed across a vast, marshy grassland below.
A claimed hint of alien life whips up spirited debate

6 days ago | sciencenews.org | Lisa Grossman

You may have already seen the headlines: Signs of life have reportedly been discovered on an alien world. A team of astronomers led by Nikku Madhusudhan of the University of Cambridge used the James Webb Space Telescope to search for interesting molecules in the atmosphere of a planet outside our solar system called K2 18b. The team now says they’ve found molecules that, on Earth, are associated with life, in an abundance that is hard to explain otherwise.
A NASA rover finally found Mars’ missing carbon

1 week ago | sciencenews.org | Lisa Grossman

The carbon that once warmed Mars’ atmosphere has been locked in its rusty rocks for millennia. That’s the story revealed by a hidden cache of carbon-bearing minerals unearthed by NASA’s Curiosity rover along its route up a Martian mountain. The finding is the first evidence of a carbon cycle on the Red Planet, but also suggests that Mars lost its life-friendly climate because that carbon cycle was slow, researchers report in the April 18 Science.
Yes, there really is a black hole on the loose in Sagittarius

1 week ago | sciencenews.org | Ken Croswell |Liz Kruesi

For the first time, astronomers have confirmed the existence of a lone black hole — one with no star orbiting it. It’s “the only one so far,” says Kailash Sahu, an astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore. In 2022, Sahu and his colleagues discovered the dark object coursing through the constellation Sagittarius. A second team disputed the claim, saying the body might instead be a neutron star.
Newfound imitation dark matter axions might reveal the real thing

1 week ago | sciencenews.org | Emily Conover

If imitation is a form of flattery, then scientists are enamored with the axion. The hypothetical subatomic particle has long eluded scientists. But it’s now been conjured up in imitation form within a thin sheet of material, researchers report April 16 in Nature. If axions exist, they could explain dark matter, an invisible form of matter inferred from observations of the cosmos. But efforts to spot the particles have been unsuccessful. The newfound axion imitators are the next best thing.
Early Parkinson’s trials revive stem cells as a possible treatment

1 week ago | sciencenews.org | Laura Sanders

Two small clinical trials revive hope for an old idea: Cells injected into the brain might replace the nerve cells that die in Parkinson’s disease. The studies, published April 16 in Nature, represent early steps for stem cell therapies that aim to replace these dead cells in the brain — and stop Parkinson’s and the movement problems, tremors and rigidity that it brings.
A messed-up body clock could be a bigger problem than lack of sleep

1 week ago | sciencenews.org | Sujata Gupta

On the eve of Daylight Saving Time, I flew home to Vermont from California. Crossing several time zones, I arrived near midnight. At 2 a.m., the clock jumped ahead an hour, leaving me discombobulated. “How messed up am I?” I asked sleep researcher and evolutionary anthropologist David Samson days later. Jet lag can make people feel moody and hungry at weird times, but my extreme state probably masked chronic sleep dysregulation, he told me.
Tech billionaires’ vision of an AI-dominated future is flawed - and dangerous

1 week ago | sciencenews.org | Ashley Yeager

Ashley Yeager is the associate news editor at Science News. She has worked at The Scientist, the Simons Foundation, Duke University and the W.M. Keck Observatory, and was the web producer for Science News from 2013 to 2015. She has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and a master’s degree in science writing from MIT.
A drug for heavy metal poisoning may double as a snakebite treatment

1 week ago | sciencenews.org | Aimee Cunningham

An old drug may find new use as a speedy treatment for venomous snakebites. The drug, called unithiol, has long been used as a therapy for heavy metal poisoning. Research in mice suggests the drug could block damaging proteins that are found in the venom of many vipers. A recent Phase I clinical trial explored different dosages of the drug in people — larger quantities than are used for metal poisoning — and didn’t find safety issues, researchers report in the March eBioMedicine.