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<i>Science</i> and <i>Nature</i> get their social science studies replicated—or not, the mechanisms behind human-induced earthquakes, and the taboo of claiming causality in science
A new project out of the Center for Open Science in Charlottesville, Virginia, found that of all the experimental social science papers published in …
7 years, 4 months ago
Sending flocks of tiny satellites out past Earth orbit and solving the irrigation efficiency paradox
Small satellites—about the size of a briefcase—have been hitching rides on rockets to lower Earth orbit for decades. Now, because of their low cost a…
7 years, 4 months ago
Ancient volcanic eruptions, and peer pressure—from robots
Several thousand years ago the volcano under Santorini in Greece—known as Thera—erupted in a tremendous explosion, dusting the nearby Mediterranean c…
7 years, 4 months ago
Doubts about the drought that kicked off our latest geological age, and a faceoff between stink bugs with samurai wasps
We now live in the Meghalayan age—the last age of the Holocene epoch. Did you get the memo? A July decision by the International Commission on Strati…
7 years, 5 months ago
How our brains may have evolved for language, and clues to what makes us leaders—or followers
Yes, humans are the only species with language, but how did we acquire it? New research suggests our linguistic prowess might arise from the same pro…
7 years, 5 months ago
Liquid water on Mars, athletic performance in transgender women, and the lost colony of Roanoke
Billions of years ago, Mars probably hosted many water features: streams, rivers, gullies, etc. But until recently, water detected on the Red Planet …
7 years, 5 months ago
Why the platypus gave up suckling, and how gravity waves clear clouds
Suckling mothers milk is a pretty basic feature of being a mammal. Humans do it. Possums do it. But monotremes such as the platypus and echidna—altho…
7 years, 5 months ago
The South Pole’s IceCube detector catches a ghostly particle from deep space, and how rice knows to grow when submerged
A detection of a single neutrino at the 1-square-kilometer IceCube detector in Antarctica may signal the beginning of “neutrino astronomy.” The neutr…
7 years, 5 months ago
A polio outbreak threatens global eradication plans, and what happened to America’s first dogs
Wild polio has been hunted to near extinction in a decades-old global eradication program. Now, a vaccine-derived outbreak in the Democratic Republic…
7 years, 6 months ago
Increasing transparency in animal research to sway public opinion, and a reaching a plateau in human mortality
Public opinion on the morality of animal research is on the downswing in the United States. But some researchers think letting the public know more a…
7 years, 6 months ago