SALT LAKE CITY— A literal moonshot just might reveal the thickness of Europa’s icy crust. A new plan to launch an SUV-sized rocket canister at Jupiter’s famous, frigid moon could shake the surface so much that the tremors would be visible from space, said mechanical engineer T.J. Campbell of the Catholic University of America in […]

In April, headlines proclaimed that the tiger population was finally showing signs of recovery; a new report from the World Wildlife Fund had found that numbers of the cats had grown from 3,200 in 2010 to 3,890 in the organization’s recent census. After a century of tiger numbers dropping due to poaching and habitat loss, […]

SALT LAKE CITY — In the Indian Ocean off the coast of Sri Lanka, pygmy blue whales are changing their tune — and they might be doing it on purpose. From 2002 to 2012, the frequency of one part of the whales’ calls steadily fell, marine bioacoustician Jennifer Miksis-Olds reported May 25 at a meeting […]

Gut microbes cause obesity by sending messages via the vagus nerve to pack on pounds, new research in rodents suggests. Bacteria in the intestines produce a molecule called acetate, which works through the brain and nervous system to make rats and mice fat, researchers report in the June 9 Nature. If the results hold up […]

Humans can’t easily protect themselves from the most dangerous species on Earth. The predator slips invisibly into homes, quietly stalks its prey and bites before a victim knows what happened. There’s little chance of escape. The attacker is Aedes aegypti, a mosquito that has, over time, developed a taste for people. It’s a city dweller […]

BOSTON — You’ve heard the advice: For clean hands, scrub with soap and water for as long as it takes to sing “Happy Birthday” twice. But is hand sanitizer just squirt and go? Finally, there’s a scientific answer: To kill bacteria, rub for at least 15 to 30 seconds. After 45 seconds, you’re not doing […]

Scientists have found a clue to why one type of DNA is passed down to children by their mothers — but not their fathers. DNA inside energy-producing organelles called mitochondria is destroyed in a dad’s sperm shortly after it fertilizes an egg, researchers report online June 23 in Science. A protein called CPS-6 cuts apart […]

Gun debate cross fireIn “Misfires in the gun control debate” (SN: 5/14/16, p. 16), Meghan Rosen reported on the roadblocks researchers face in collecting informative data on gun violence in the United States. Readers responded passionately, expressing many different viewpoints about the story and the controversial topic of gun control. “I thought Ms. Rosen’s article […]

Jupiter has a new visitor. After traveling 2.8 billion kilometers across space, NASA’s Juno probe — a mission to investigate Jupiter’s deep interior (SN: 6/25/16, p. 16) — arrived at the giant planet July 4. Juno’s scientific instruments were switched off on June 29 before the probe slid into its first of 37 orbits, so […]

To understand human longevity, look to the animal world, says James Carey, a biodemography specialist at the University of California, Davis. Studying other species, from insects to elephants, “provides important information for why we age and why we live as long as we do,” Carey says. By looking at how long other organisms can live, […]