Since Jaws was released 50 years ago, great white sharks have, arguably, become the most recognized fish in the ocean. But despite their fame, they’re not the biggest shark species. The largest shark alive today, the plankton-eating whale shark, typically grows to about 14 meters long for females and 9 meters for males, with one specimen…
Why This Is the Only Bomb That Could Destroy Iran’s Nuclear Bunker—Under 300 Feet of Rock American military engineers designed the GBU-57/B bomb to devastate deeply buried bunkers without radioactive fallout. It’s the only nonnuclear weapon that can reach Iran’s hardest target By Deni Ellis Béchard edited by Dean Visser Maxar satellite imagery overview of…
An illustration of the drug rapamycin (red) inhibiting the protein complex mTORC1, which has various effects on cellular function SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY/Getty Images The drug rapamycin seems to have more or less the same life-extending effect as restricting calories, according to the largest study yet of longevity in different vertebrate species. Scientists are investigating whether…
The symphony of summer is under way: Lawn mowers droning, cicadas buzzing, kids shrieking, outdoor concerts and cracking fireworks. Summer’s delights often reach us through our ears. But protecting our hearing is often an afterthought, if we think of it at all. Here, I’m urging you to take a moment to appreciate the sounds in…
How Supreme Court Trans Health Care Ruling Will Affect Kids The Supreme Court has decided to uphold a state ban on gender-affirming care for minors in U.S. v. Skrmetti By Allison Parshall edited by Dean Visser Hundreds of trans people, activists and supporters rally outside of the Supreme Court of the United States in Washington,…
Knee braces really do seem to relieve symptoms of osteoarthritis that affects the joint Tom Werner/Getty Images Knee braces and water-based exercise appear to be two of the most effective ways to ease the pain and stiffness caused by knee osteoarthritis. That is according to a review of 12 non-drug therapies, but higher-quality evidence is…
Court ruling allows interim nuclear waste storage in Texas, but the U.S. still has no long-term plan for its 90,000 metric tons of spent fuel.
CLIMATEWIRE | When wildfire smoke wafted from Canada across large swaths of the U.S. in 2023, it served as a wake-up call for federal safety experts. They drafted recommendations to protect outdoor workers from increasingly prevalent smoke. This time, the experts are on administrative leave. That has left a void in the federal health response…
Ticks carry more zoonotic pathogens than any other known vector Sergey Aleshin/Getty Images Tucked away in a ground-floor lab in Richmond, Virginia, is a bank of industrial freezers containing thousands of transparent, thumb-sized plastic tubes. Each is filled with a clear, yellowish fluid – blood serum taken from opossums, raccoons, black bears, coyotes, vultures and…
Meet the new face, and braincase to boot, of Asia’s mysterious Stone Age denizens, the Denisovans. The nearly complete, roughly 146,000-year-old skull of an adult male was found nearly a century ago, possibly during bridge construction in Harbin, China. An earlier study claimed that the Harbin skull, nicknamed Dragon Man, represented a new species called…
