Chicago’s viral ‘Rat Hole’ is less rat splat, more squirrel squish. Researchers determined it was probably a squirrel that left a rodent-shaped impression in the concrete of the Windy City. Their new study, published October 15 in Biology Letters, borrowed paleontological tools to analyze the bizarre and beloved local landmark. Michael Granatosky, an evolutionary biomechanics…
October 14, 2025 4 min read Economics Nobel Honors Work Linking Scientific Research to Prosperity Joel Mokyr, Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt share the Nobel economics prize for work that underlines the importance of investing in research and development By Philip Ball & Nature magazine Joel Mokyr, Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt, winners of the…
Homo heidelbergensis on the ancient banks of the river Thames in modern-day Swanscombe, UK NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM, LONDON/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY This is an extract from Our Human Story, our newsletter about the revolution in archaeology. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every month. When we think about tricky places for humans to live, our…
October 14, 2025 3 min read CDC Cuts Threaten Public Health Nationwide, Fired Employees Say A quarter of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention staff is gone after the Trump administration’s latest reductions in force and earlier layoffs By Dan Vergano edited by Tanya Lewis The David J. Sencer CDC Museum at the headquarters…
Keith Thomas (right) was able to control another person’s hand MATTHEW LIBASSI/Feinstein Institutes for Medical research A man with paralysis has been able to move and sense another person’s hand as if it were his own, thanks to a new kind of “telepathic” brain implant. “We created a mind-body connection between two different individuals,” says…
The Water RemembersAmy Bowers CordalisLittle Brown & Co., $30 In September 2002, an estimated 34,000 to 78,000 adult Chinook salmon died in the Klamath River within the Yurok Reservation in Northern California. The U.S. government had diverted river water to farms during a drought. The resulting low levels and warm temperature of the water, coupled…
Astronomers have yet to find irrefutable proof for any natural satellites of exoplanets—so-called exomoons—but as circumstantial evidence accumulates and the list of candidates grows, the discovery of a true-blue exomoon seems to be looming on the horizon. The latest not-quite-smoking-gun claim concerns a potential exomoon that may be erupting to spew debris onto and around…
October 14, 2025 5 min read Immigration Has Shaped the Lives and Careers of 30 Percent of Recent Nobel Prize Scientists Of the 202 Nobel laureates in physics, chemistry and physiology or medicine this century, fewer than 70 percent hail from the country in which they were awarded their prize. These graphics trace their journeys…
By weaving Kevlar or polyethylene nanofibers into standard neoprene in wetsuits, researchers found ways to limit injury during rare encounters with sharks.
This article is part of “Innovations In: Type 1 Diabetes,” an editorially independent special report that was produced with financial support from Vertex. More than 9.5 million people globally live with type 1 diabetes, and this figure is increasing rapidly everywhere, across all age groups. The burden of this autoimmune disease—the risks of which include…
