A Once-Captive Dolphin Has Introduced Her Friends to a Silly Trend
“What we had here was an example of dolphin culture being established.”
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Life Up Close
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Vidhya Nagarajan Are Cities Making Animals Smarter?
A mysterious wild cat in Sri Lanka may hold a clue.
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Kerstin Meyer / Getty An Ancient Genetic Quirk Could Doom Whales Today
After losing an unnecessary gene millions of years ago, marine mammals are now uniquely vulnerable to pesticides that have only existed for a century.
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Alan Bennett / UC Davis The Wonder Plant That Could Slash Fertilizer Use
An indigenous Mexican corn gets its nitrogen from the air.
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Michael Virtanen / AP The Mystery of the Ancient Volcano That May Have Inspired Atlantis
Experts still vehemently disagree over when one of the biggest eruptions of the Holocene actually happened.
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Courtesy of Jonathan Proctor, Solomon Hsiang / The ... A Disappointing New Problem With Geo-Engineering
Dimming the sky won’t save the world’s harvests.
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Colin Braley / Reuters I Don’t Believe in Aliens Anymore
Humanity must learn to find meaning without relying on gods or extraterrestrials.
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In a Second, the Entire World Shape-Shifts
A woman with a rare neurological disorder details the experience of being lost every day of her life.
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Rubberball / Getty Women More Likely to Survive Heart Attacks If Treated by Female Doctors
And male doctors do better when they have more female colleagues.
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Jonathan Ernst / Reuters The Car Industry Squirms, as It Gets What It Asked For
Automakers spent months lobbying the Trump administration to weaken the EPA’s clean-car standards. But they’re not sure they wanted them that weak.
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Toru Hanai / Reuters Why Is Buying Pet Food So Hard?
A new start-up is making vegan food for dogs and lab-grown mouse meat for cats. It wants to change the way all pets eat.
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Mike Hutchings / Reuters Scientists Have Uncovered a Disturbing Climate Change Precedent
During the rise of mammals, Earth's temperatures spiked in a scary way that the planet may experience again soon.
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Concept by Delcan & Co; photograph by The ... The Cognitive Biases Tricking Your Brain
Science suggests we’re hardwired to delude ourselves. Can we do anything about it?
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Kirill Kudryavtsev / Getty Why Did Someone Unleash a Bunch of Goats in a Quiet Neighborhood?
The mystery behind a boisterous scene in Boise
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NASA / Reuters The Race to Launch From U.S. Soil Heats Up
NASA says SpaceX and Boeing are both behind schedule—but one is closer to the finish line.
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Jonathan Ernst / Reuters Trump’s Fuel-Efficiency Rollback Breaks With 50 Years of Precedent
The proposal would undermine California’s ability to regulate toxic air pollution.
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Kyselova Inna / Shutterstock Blueberry Earth: The Delicious Thought Experiment That's Roiling Planetary Scientists
“A roaring ocean of boiling jam, with the geysers of released air and steam likely ejecting at least a few berries into orbit.”
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NASA / MSFC / Sergey Peterman / Shutterstock ... Too Much of a Good Thing at NASA
The agency’s culture of optimism is essential for launching people and robots into space. But it can lead to problems with budgets and deadlines.
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Sue Ogrocki / AP / The Atlantic Trump Finally Picks a Science Adviser—And People Are Delighted
His nominee, Kelvin Droegemeier, is an accomplished meteorologist who studies storms and other extreme weather.
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Brian Snyder / Reuters The Problem With The New York Times’ Big Story on Climate Change
By portraying the early years of climate politics as a tragedy, the magazine lets Republicans and the fossil-fuel industry off the hook.
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Christopher DeLorenzo How to Make Friends, According to Science
To begin, don’t dismiss the humble acquaintance.
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Vivek Prakash / Reuters How to Write a Book Without Losing Your Mind
Expert advice on ending procrastination and finishing that manuscript, dissertation, or other big project
