Science

August 12, 2024 3 min read West Nile Cases Are Rising. Here’s How to Protect Yourself West Nile is the most common mosquito-borne disease in the U.S. Here’s what to know about the infection By Meghan Bartels West Nile disease starts with a mosquito bite—but when bad luck strikes, the infection can end with dire […]

August 12, 2024 5 min read Cancer Rates Are Rising in Young People. Here’s What You Need to Know Do you think you are too young to get screened for cancer? Think again. It might save your life By Karen E. Knudsen & Othman Laraki Today a woman in her 30s faces higher odds of

August 12, 2024 2 min read Regenerating Deep-Sea Worms Harness Live-In Algae as They Split into Three Gutless, solar-powered worms genetically control their resident algae By Rohini Subrahmanyam The green coloring on this acoel comes from symbiotic algae. At first glance, tiny flatworms called acoels seem pretty simple. Their few internal organs drift freely in

August 12, 2024 4 min read Invasive Joro Spiders Keep Their Cool Even When Stressed Compared with other arachnids, invasive Joro spiders are calm, cool and collected under stress, a new study shows By Stephanie Pappas A Joro spider hangs out in a Georgia suburb. Kelly vanDellen/Alamy Stock Photo Joro spiders, the East Asian species

Olympic Athletes Swim the Murky Seine, and Astronauts Are Stuck on the Space Station We cover the science stories of the Olympics, concerns about artificial sweeteners and a new theory of how the pyramids were built in this week’s news roundup. By Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi & Kelso Harper Anaissa Ruiz Tejada/Scientific American Rachel Feltman:

New U.N. Cybercrime Treaty Could Threaten Human Rights A recently adopted United Nations treaty could lead to invasive digital surveillance, human rights experts warn By Kate Graham-Shaw NEW YORK CITY —The United Nations approved its first international cybercrime treaty yesterday. The effort succeeded despite opposition from tech companies and human rights groups, who warn that

Colds Bring Lots of Snot, But Just How Much? Science Is Strangely Silent Snot is one of the immune system’s efforts to ditch a virus, but how much we produce when sick is a slippery subject By Bethany Brookshire When sick, our noses often feel like a snot machine When you’re struggling through a case

Perseid Meteor Shower Joins Stunning Mars and Jupiter Conjunction Early risers get a double sky treat: a Mars and Jupiter conjunction and the Perseid meteor shower at once By Phil Plait Perseid meteor shower over Lassen Volcanic National Park in California. Jerry Hamblen/Getty Images Setting an alarm for 4:00 A.M. on August 14 is a

The goal is simple: save the world. Rob Jackson, climate scientist and author of Into the Clear Blue Sky, is trying to save the world by removing things: removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, removing fossil fuels from our cars, removing everyday pollutants from our homes. Last summer in the Northern Hemisphere felt cataclysmic: the

When I was a mere lad, probably in middle school, I remember a friend telling me that the Apollo astronauts could see the Great Wall of China from the moon. If someone told me that now, I’d know almost instinctively that this claim is baloney. Of course, back then when I was a lot less