Dec 26 ‘What this year will be’ By Mary Jo Brooks Shelley Girdner's recently published debut collection is called “You Were That White Bird” and is filled with poems that capture the details in the natural world around her and the small miracles of her life. Continue reading
Dec 16 Seahorses are weird, and their genome knows why By Leigh Anne Tiffany To unlock the secrets of the seahorse, scientists have sequenced its genome for the first time. Continue reading
Nov 26 Past glacier movements offer clues to the future of ice melt By Julia Griffin The West Antarctic ice sheet holds enough water to raise the world’s oceans an estimated 10 feet -- and it’s shrinking. Continue reading
Aug 24 How do you stop invasive lionfish? Maybe with a robotic zapper By Nsikan Akpan, Matt Ehrichs A nonprofit company is engineering robots to cull invasive lionfish, a detrimental species in the Atlantic Ocean. Continue reading
Jun 28 Amber fossils tell 99 million-year-old story of unusual baby birds By Nsikan Akpan A pair of 99 million-year-old fossils reveal Cretaceous baby birds with finger claws and adultlike feathers. Continue reading
Jun 24 Naked lizard proves hair, scales and feathers descend from single reptilian ancestor, study says By Leigh Anne Tiffany A decades-long scientific debate is finally resolved, thanks to a scaleless mutant lizard. Continue reading
Jun 24 Gigantic, floating screen sets course to sift plastic from oceans By Knvul Sheikh, Scientific American If the prototype is successful, a full-scale 100-kilometer-long barrier will be strung out in the Pacific Ocean to collect some 68 million kilograms of floating plastic and trash. Continue reading
Jun 06 How gardening makes this poet more observant By Mary Jo Brooks Ross Gay is passionate about poetry, gardening and basketball. “I guess you could say that I think all three things alter our notion of time," he said. Continue reading
Jun 06 Bellies full of microplastic rob baby fish of their basic instincts By Nsikan Akpan European perch stuff themselves with microplastics rather than natural food, derailing their development, according to new research from Sweden. Continue reading
May 17 First giraffe genome reveals the oddity behind an African icon By Nsikan Akpan The giraffe is an oddball, both outside and in. By sequencing the giraffe’s genome for the first time, researchers have learned that the animal’s extraordinary external features are matched by wild genetic traits buried inside its cells. Continue reading