A busy week for science in Moscow — Science News, June 3, 1972 U.S. and Soviet leaders … signed agreements on space, science and technology, health and the environment…. The space agreement … outlines plans for cooperation in fields such as meteorology, study of the natural environment, planetary exploration and space biology. Update The 1972 space agreement…
For millions of years, megalodon sharks were top ocean predators — and then came the great whites. New analyses of teeth hint that competition for food from great white sharks may have helped give the megatoothed giants an extra shove toward extinction. Scientists reconstructed shark feeding habits by analyzing zinc in the teeth of 20…
From cylindrical nanotubes to the hollow spheres known as buckyballs, carbon is famous for forming tiny, complex nanostructures (SN: 8/15/19). Now, scientists have added a new geometry to the list: a twisted strip called a Möbius carbon nanobelt. Möbius strips are twisted bands that are famous in mathematics for their weird properties. A rubber band,…
A massive urban landscape that contained interconnected campsites, villages, towns and monumental centers thrived in the Amazon rainforest more than 600 years ago. In what is now Bolivia, members of the Casarabe culture built an urban system that included straight, raised causeways running for several kilometers, canals and reservoirs, researchers report May 25 in Nature.…
For millennia, the universe did a pretty good job of keeping its secrets from science. Ancient Greeks thought the universe was a sphere of fixed stars surrounding smaller spheres carrying planets around the central Earth. Even Copernicus, who in the 16th century correctly replaced the Earth with the sun, viewed the universe as a single…
The U.S. defense and intelligence communities are taking unidentified flying objects, officially known as unidentified aerial phenomena, seriously. And some researchers think the scientific community should too. On May 17, the U.S. Congress held its first public hearing about these objects in decades (SN: 6/26/71). Two Pentagon officials described efforts to catalog and analyze sightings,…
When a star gets too close to a black hole, sparks fly. And, potentially, so do subatomic particles called neutrinos. A dramatic light show results when a supermassive black hole rips apart a wayward star. Now, for the second time, a high-energy neutrino has been spotted that may have come from one of these “tidal…
Two Inca children slated for ritual sacrifice more than 500 years ago quaffed a special soothing concoction that has gone undetected until now. Those young victims, most likely a girl and a boy roughly 4 to 8 years old, drank a liquid that may have lightened their moods and calmed their nerves in the days…
Cometary evidence of a planet beyond Pluto — Science News, May 6, 1972 There have been suggestions that our solar system might have a tenth planet…. In the April Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, a mathematician … presents what he says is “some very interesting evidence of a planet beyond Pluto.” The…
Ramses VI faced a smelly challenge when he became Egypt’s king in 1145 B.C. The new pharaoh’s first job was to rid the land of the stench of fish and birds, denizens of the Nile Delta’s fetid swamps. That, at any rate, was the instruction in a hymn written to Ramses VI upon his ascension…
Science News celebrates its 100th birthday this year. Across the century, we’ve covered the latest advances in science, technology and medicine, from the birth of genetics, radio astronomy and quantum mechanics to modern computing, the atomic age, space exploration and climate change. Browse the archive by year or test your headline knowledge with the quiz…
Turns out we may be unfairly stereotyping dogs. Modern breeds are shaped around aesthetics: Chihuahuas’ batlike ears, poodles’ curly fur, dachshunds’ hot dog shape. But breeds are frequently associated with certain behaviors, too. For instance, the American Kennel Club describes border collies as “affectionate, smart, energetic” and beagles as “friendly, curious, merry.” Now, genetic information…