Science
Historical art can hide scientific secrets
In the upper right corner of his 1611 painting “Air,” Flemish artist Jan Brueghel the Elder drew a bat holding a songbird in its jaws. While the…
A human set a new mathematical record. Then AI came for it
On the last day of August, a human mathematician kicked off a flurry of advances on one of the most famous problems in number theory — and was almost…
How the body adapts to extreme heat
“I can’t do this,” the woman in her 60s said as she lowered herself into the 40° Celsius water that filled a big silver tub at the end of a dimly lit…
The Sept. 11 disasters still shape people’s health 25 years later
Denise Harrison was working at Bellevue Hospital in New York City on September 11, 2001. The hospital had cleared the emergency room, anticipating a…
Climate change is shifting malaria hot spots in Africa
Malaria, one of the world’s most prominent public health challenges, is on the move. A new study based on previous predictions of where malaria in…
Newfound fossils are spilling Denisovan secrets
A long-lost cave in southwestern China has offered archaeologists their first real glimpse of Denisovan culture. Denisovans were a sister species of…
Winter work shows it really pays to be a smart mountain chickadee
A mountain chickadee waking up in the Sierra Nevada range on a snowy morning has no time to dawdle. Weighing about as much as a pencil, it needs to…
A choir of katydid ancestors filled the Jurassic rainforest with song
A symphony of insect songs rang through the Jurassic rainforest, and scientists have now found the traces of this ancient soundscape. Based on an…
Innocent-looking AI reasoning can make bad behavior harder to catch
Safety concerns about AI are growing, and now, a common method for catching misbehaving systems could have flaws, new research suggests. In…
Was the ‘American cheetah’ a cheetah at all?
Tens of thousands of years ago, a long-legged cat nicknamed the “American cheetah” prowled North America. But an analysis of the cat family tree…