Science
76 percent of well-known insects fall outside protected areas
The existing boundaries of national parks and other habitat preserves aren’t enough to protect more than three-quarters of the world’s well-studied insects.The finding, reported February 1 in One Earth, shows that people who design nature preserves “don’t really think...
Science
Study: Superconductivity switches on and off in “magic-angle” graphene
With some careful twisting and stacking, MIT physicists have revealed a new and exotic property in “magic-angle”...
Science
A new metric of extinction risk considers how cultures care for species
In shallow coastal waters of the Indian and Pacific oceans, a seagrass-scrounging cousin of the manatee is in trouble. Environmental strains like pollution and habitat loss pose a major threat to dugong (Dugong dugon) survival, so much so that...
Science
Prairie voles can find partners just fine without the ‘love hormone’ oxytocin
Prairie voles have long been heralded as models of monogamy. Now, a study suggests that the “love hormone” once thought essential for their bonding — oxytocin — might not be so necessary after all.Interest in the romantic lives of...
Science
Mysterious marks on Ice Age cave art may have been ancient records
As far back as roughly 25,000 years ago, Ice Age hunter-gatherers may have jotted down markings to communicate information about the behavior of their prey, a new study finds.These markings include dots, lines and the symbol “Y,” and often...
Science
It’s possible to reach net-zero carbon emissions. Here’s how
Patricia Hidalgo-Gonzalez saw the future of energy on a broiling-hot day last September.An email alert hit her inbox from the San Diego Gas & Electric Company. “Extreme heat straining the grid,” read the message, which was also pinged as a...
Science
Some of San Diego’s waves turned bright pink. Here’s why.
Pink waves at Torrey Pines State Beach, temporarily dyed as part of a study by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California-San...
Science
Targeting cancer with a multidrug nanoparticle
Treating cancer with combinations of drugs can be more effective than using a single drug. However, figuring...
Science
Birds that dive may be at greater risk of extinction
Birds that dive underwater — such as penguins, loons and grebes — may be more likely to go extinct than their nondiving kin, a new study finds.Many water birds have evolved highly specialized bodies and behaviors that facilitate diving....
Science
Fossils suggest early primates lived in a once-swampy Arctic
The Arctic today is a hostile place for most primates. But a series of fossils found since the 1970s suggest that wasn’t always the case.Dozens of fossilized teeth and jaw bones unearthed in northern Canada belonged to two species...