Face masks — the unofficial symbol of the COVID-19 pandemic — are leveling up. A mask outfitted with special electronics can detect SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, and other airborne viruses within 10 minutes of exposure, materials researcher Yin Fang and colleagues report September 19 in Matter. “The lightness and wearability of this face […]
Getting out into society after a long isolation gets awkward. Ask the Pahrump poolfish, loners in a desert for some 10,000 years. This hold-in-your-hand-size fish (Empetrichthys latos) has a chubby, torpedo shape and a mouth that looks as if it’s almost smiling. Until the 1950s, this species had three forms, each evolving in its own […]
The massive Tonga eruption generated a set of planet-circling tsunamis that may have started out as a single mound of water roughly the height of the Statue of Liberty. What’s more, the explosive eruption triggered an immense atmospheric shock wave that spawned a second set of especially fast-moving tsunamis, a rare phenomenon that can complicate […]
It was the juice that tipped him off. At lunch, Ícaro de A.T. Pires found the flavor of his grape juice muted, flattened into just water with sugar. There was no grape goodness. “I stopped eating lunch and went to the bathroom to try to smell the toothpaste and shampoo,” says Pires, an ear, nose […]
Giant honeybees send waves rippling across their open nests by flipping their abdomens upward in coordination, a sight that approaching predators seem to shy away from. A new study is revealing details about what triggers the behavior, known as shimmering. That shimmering is strongest when the bees are shown a dark object that moves against […]
After receiving an experimental treatment to stop the body from attacking itself, five people no longer have any symptoms of lupus. That treatment, called CAR-T cell therapy, seems to have reset the patients’ immune systems, sending their autoimmune disease into remission, researchers report September 15 in Nature Medicine. It’s not yet clear how long the […]
On the fringe of Kenya’s Gazi village, 50 kilometers south of Mombasa, Mwatime Hamadi walks barefoot on a path of scorching-hot sand toward a thicket of trees that seem to float where the land meets the Indian Ocean. Behind her moves village life: Mothers carry babies on their backs while they hang laundry between palm […]
From crabs to caterpillars, a wide range of animals successfully use camouflage to hamper detection by hungry predators. But some concealment strategies are more effective than others, a new study suggests. The analysis compiles and synthesizes data from scores of studies on animal camouflage. Comparisons between different camouflaging methods show that masquerading as specific objects […]
An experiment … at the CERN Laboratory in Geneva … gives an important clue to structural arrangements deep within the proton…. The result hints at the existence of a new and very strong fundamental interaction — the process that holds [quarks] together inside the protons.… A number of theorists have speculated about its nature and […]
Earth’s journey through the Milky Way might have helped create the planet’s first continents. Comets may have bombarded Earth every time the early solar system traveled through our galaxy’s spiral arms, a new study suggests. Those recurring barrages in turn helped trigger the formation of our planet’s continental crust, researchers propose August 23 in Geology. […]