China just landed the first spacecraft on the moon’s farside

China’s Chang’e-4 lander and rover just became the first spacecraft to land on the farside of the moon. The lander touched down at 9:26 p.m. Eastern time on January 2, according to an announcement from the China National Space Administration. The spacecraft is part of a series of Chinese space missions named Chang’e (pronounced CHONG-uh) ... Read more

The physics of fluids explains how crowds of marathon runners move

Marathoners queuing up for a big race tend to go with the flow, surging toward the start line like a fluid. Using footage of runners moving in groups toward the start of the Chicago Marathon, researchers developed a theory that treats the crowd like a liquid to explain its movement. The theory correctly predicted the ... Read more

The science of CBD lags behind its marketing

Treatments for pain and other common health problems often fall short, leading to untold misery and frustration. So it’s not hard to understand the lure of a treatment that promises to be benign, natural and good for just about everything that ails you. Enter cannabidiol, or CBD. So far, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration ... Read more

Treating cystic fibrosis patients before birth could safeguard organs

A drug that treats a rare form of cystic fibrosis may have even better results if given before birth, a study in ferrets suggests. The drug, known by the generic name ivacaftor, can restore the function of a faulty version of the CFTR protein, called CFTRG551D. The normal CFTR protein controls the flow of charged ... Read more

How scientists took the first picture of a black hole

Black holes are extremely camera shy. Supermassive black holes, ensconced in the centers of galaxies, make themselves visible by spewing bright jets of charged particles or by flinging away or ripping up nearby stars. Up close, these behemoths are surrounded by glowing accretion disks of infalling material. But because a black hole’s extreme gravity prevents ... Read more

Climate change made the Arctic greener. Now parts of it are turning brown.

The Chugach people of southern Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula have picked berries for generations. Tart blueberries and sweet, raspberry-like salmonberries — an Alaska favorite — are baked into pies and boiled into jams. But in the summer of 2009, the bushes stayed brown and the berries never came. For three more years, harvests failed. “It hit ... Read more

Ketamine cultivates new nerve cell connections in mice

Ketamine banishes depression by slowly coaxing nerve cells to sprout new connections, a study of mice suggests. The finding, published in the April 12 Science, may help explain how the hallucinogenic anesthetic can ease some people’s severe depression. The results are timely, coming on the heels of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s March 5 ... Read more

Ancient humans used the moon as a calendar in the sky

The sun’s rhythm may have set the pace of each day, but when early humans needed a way to keep time beyond a single day and night, they looked to a second light in the sky. The moon was one of humankind’s first timepieces long before the first written language, before the earliest organized cities ... Read more

Moons that escape their planets could become ‘ploonets’

Meet ploonets: planets of moonish origin. In other star systems, some moons could escape their planets and start orbiting their stars instead, new simulations suggest. Scientists have dubbed such liberated worlds “ploonets,” and say that current telescopes may be able to find the wayward objects. Astronomers think that exomoons — moons orbiting planets that orbit ... Read more

Tiny glasses help reveal how praying mantises can see in 3-D

A praying mantis depends on precision targeting when hunting insects. Now, scientists have identified nerve cells that help calculate the depth perception required for these predators’ surgical strikes. In addition to providing clues about insect vision, the principles of these cells’ behavior, described June 28 in Nature Communications, may also lead to advances in robot ... Read more