An artificial intelligence that navigates its environment much like mammals do could help solve a mystery about our own internal GPS. Equipped with virtual versions of specialized brain nerve cells called grid cells, the AI could easily solve and plan new routes through virtual mazes. That performance, described online May 9 in Nature, suggests the […]

A genie in a bottle might grant you a wish, but neutrons trapped in a bottle aren’t so accommodating. Outside of an atomic nucleus, the neutral particles eventually decay into other particles. But scientists aren’t sure exactly how long neutrons stick around for before their demise: Two types of neutron lifetime measurements disagree. One type […]

Here’s the story of a caterpillar that foils gruesome violence orchestrated by corn. No, that’s not backward. Plants often look helpless to a human, but they fight with smells and other invisible chemistry. A growing body of evidence, for example, shows that plants under attack can waft out scents that attract help, such as tiny […]

Suicide rates for children ages 5 to 12 are roughly twice as high for black children as for white children, according to new data. But for adolescents ages 13 to 17, the pattern flips, with white kids having higher suicide rates, researchers report online May 21 in JAMA Pediatrics. The new study is based on […]

Opioids have quickly become a major cause of death among young Americans aged 25 to 34, with one in five deaths in 2016 tied to the drugs, researchers report online June 1 in JAMA Open Network. That’s a steep rise from 2001, when opioids accounted for 4 percent of all deaths in that age group. […]

Results from Family Tree DNA, a genetic testing company, helped Lara Diamond find a branch of her family she thought had been lost in the Holocaust. Those 2012 results brought dozens of new people into her life. Eager to find more relatives, Diamond, now 42, a professional genealogist in Baltimore, decided to try out all […]

NASA’s Opportunity rover has gone into survival mode while waiting for a historically large dust storm on Mars to pass — or for the vehicle’s batteries to run out. Opportunity charges its batteries with solar panels, so a storm such as this that blocks the sun and turns the Martian day to night poses a […]

Sunlight shapes oil spills’ long-term legacies. In the days and weeks after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, sunlight hit the oil slicks on the surface of the water. That triggered chemical reactions that added oxygen to oil molecules that once were just chains of carbon and hydrogen atoms. These […]

MADISON, Wis. — When eggs go bad, bacteria usually get the blame. But some bacteria help bobtail squid keep their eggs fresh. Bacteria that female Hawaiian bobtail squid (Euprymna scolopes) deposit in the jelly surrounding their eggs can fight off a fungus called Fusarium keratoplasticum, Spencer Nyholm reported July 9 at the Beneficial Microbes Conference. […]

Climate change could make a showy invasive milkweed called a bloodflower even more of a menace for monarch butterflies than it already is. Monarch caterpillars, which feed on plants in the milkweed family, readily feast on Asclepias curassavica. Gardeners in the southern United States plant it for its showy orange blooms, yet the species “is […]