A man with a hole in his forehead, who was interred in what’s now northwest Alabama between around 3,000 and 5,000 years ago, represents North America’s oldest known case of skull surgery. Damage around the man’s oval skull opening indicates that someone scraped out that piece of bone, probably to reduce brain swelling caused by ... Read more
Science, some would say, is an enterprise that should concern itself solely with cold, hard facts. Flights of imagination should be the province of philosophers and poets. On the other hand, as Albert Einstein so astutely observed, “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” Knowledge, he said, is limited to what we know now, while “imagination ... Read more
It was one of the biggest climate change questions of the early 2000s: Had the planet’s rising fever stalled, even as humans pumped more heat-trapping gases into Earth’s atmosphere? By the turn of the century, the scientific understanding of climate change was on firm footing. Decades of research showed that carbon dioxide was accumulating in ... Read more
As astronomy datasets grow larger, scientists are scouring them for black holes, hoping to better understand the exotic objects. But the drive to find more black holes is leading some astronomers astray. “You say black holes are like a needle in a haystack, but suddenly we have way more haystacks than we did before,” says ... Read more
It’s a weird time in the pandemic. COVID-19 cases are once again climbing in some parts of the United States, but still falling from the January surge in other places. The omicron subvariant BA.2 is now dominant in the country, accounting for more than 50 percent of new cases in the week ending March 26, ... Read more
Buried within the Las Pinturas pyramid in San Bartolo, Guatemala, thousands of painted plaster mural fragments offer a window into ancient Maya civilization. Two of those fragments form the earliest known record of a Maya calendar, created between 300 and 200 B.C. The fragments depict the date of “7 Deer” from the 260-day sacred calendar ... Read more
A young, massive planet is orbiting in an unusual place in its star system, and it’s leading researchers to revive a long-debated view of how giant planets can form. The protoplanet, nine times the mass of Jupiter, is too far away from its star to have formed by accreting matter piece by piece, images suggest. ... Read more
The windy and chaotic remains surrounding recently exploded stars may be launching the fastest particles in the universe. Highly magnetic neutron stars known as pulsars whip up a fast and strong magnetic wind. When charged particles, specifically electrons, get caught in those turbulent conditions, they can be boosted to extreme energies, astrophysicists report April 28 ... Read more
That’s one small stem for a plant, one giant leap for plant science. In a tiny, lab-grown garden, the first seeds ever sown in lunar dirt have sprouted. This small crop, planted in samples returned by Apollo missions, offers hope that astronauts could someday grow their own food on the moon. But plants potted in ... Read more
As health officials continue their investigation of unexplained cases of liver inflammation in children, what is known is still outpaced by what isn’t. At least 500 cases of hepatitis from an unknown cause have been reported in children in roughly 30 countries, according to health agencies in Europe and the United States. As of May ... Read more