In a feat that demonstrates the feasibility of using satellites to transmit uncrackable quantum messages, scientists have measured the quantum properties of photons sent to space and back again. Physicists beamed the blips of light up to a satellite that reflected them back to Earth. Upon the photons’ return, the team, led by Paolo Villoresi […]

Four new elements now have names. In December, the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry officially recognized the discovery of elements 113, 115, 117 and 118, filling out the seventh row of the periodic table (SN: 2/6/16, p. 7). As is traditional in chemistry, the naming rights went to the discoverers: Scientists at RIKEN […]

Urban living could pose risks to great tits, at least in terms of their DNA. City life comes with a host of factors that can, for better or worse, affect a bird over its life span. To see how urbanization might influence early development in great tits (Parus major), biologists at Lund University in Sweden […]

BOSTON — A deadly infection that has now spread to three states is puzzling disease investigators. The illness is caused by Elizabethkingia anophelis, a bacterium commonly found in soil and water and that, until now, has rarely caused problems. Public health authorities in Wisconsin first reported the outbreak to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control […]

Particle physics fans are just going to have to wait. Rumors swirling on the internet are casting doubt on hints of a new particle reported by scientists at the particle physics laboratory CERN in Geneva. But researchers say it’s still too soon to know whether the particle exists or not. “Currently the data are still […]

More clues about where to search for a possible ninth planet lurking in the fringes of our solar system are emerging from the Kuiper belt, the icy debris field beyond Neptune. And new calculations suggest that the putative planet might be brighter — and a bit easier to find — than once thought. Evidence for […]

The cradle of agricultural civilization was culturally diverse. Two societies lived side-by-side 10,000 years ago in the rich Near Eastern valleys of the Fertile Crescent, where humans first learned to farm, a new study finds. Over time, one group expanded west, carrying agriculture into Europe. The other spread east, taking their traditions into South Asia, […]

Whiffs of ancient air trapped in rock salt for hundreds of millions of years are shaking up the history of oxygen and life on Earth. By carefully crushing rock salt, researchers have measured the chemical makeup of air pockets embedded inside the rock. This new technique reveals that oxygen made up 10.9 percent of Earth’s […]

Many homeowners go out of their way to make their yards friendly to birds. They plant vegetation or install feeders and birdhouses — and battle the squirrels that try to take advantage of that generosity. But what seems like a good deed for nature may be luring some birds to their deaths, a new study […]

CHICAGO — It’s a Higgs boson bonanza for particle physicists, who are capitalizing on the newest data from the Large Hadron Collider to delve more deeply into the particle’s properties. Scientists are keeping a keen eye out for any deviations from the standard model of particle physics, the overarching theory that describes elementary particles and […]