Science

Researchers found the gene and genetic variation behind orange fur in most domestic cats, solving a decades-long mystery.

Newly Discovered Fossil Tracks May Rewrite Early History of Reptiles Fossilized claw tracks discovered in Australia show that the animal group that includes reptiles, mammals and birds formed earlier than expected By Rita Aksenfeld & Nature magazine Illustration of an amniote animal thought to have left fossilized claw prints in Victoria, Australia. Fossil claw prints…

Jiuzhang, an advanced photonic quantum computer like the one that entangled a record amount of qubits University of Science and Technology of China The number of qubits that have been entangled in quantum computers has nearly doubled within the past year – the increase is happening so fast, it seems to be following a “quantum…

A decades-old dental health treatment may soon vanish in the United States. Access to fluoride supplements, prescribed to prevent cavities in children without access to fluoridated water, is now under threat from a controversial move by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The agency announced May 13 that it plans to remove fluoride products that…

Lawmakers Push to Legalize Emissions-Heavy ‘Supersonic’ Planes A bill to repeal the ban on supersonic flights over the U.S. could increase the demand for the gas-guzzling jets from around a dozen to as many as 240 By Corbin Hiar & E&E News The Concorde, seen above as it is returned to the Intrepid Museum last…

Cutting onions can be a tearful experience Foster.r/Getty Images If you find yourself crying when chopping onions, physicists have found a possible solution – but professional chefs probably aren’t going to like it. When onions are cut open, they spray a mixture of sulphur-rich compounds into the air, one of which is syn-propanethial-S-oxide, a chemical…

The Teal Wand, an at-home HPV testing device that could replace a Pap smear, could broaden access to cervical cancer screening.

We’ve never been so close to discovering life beyond Earth. Our generation could be the one that finds it—provided two essential ingredients exist. First, that there’s life out there. Second, that we’re willing to look. Alien life’s existence is outside our control, but the universe seems to encourage our attention. Many people rest their optimism…

What are we learning from the genomes of chimps and other apes? S.Tuengler/inafrica.de/Alamy 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. One of the most vexing unsolved problems in human evolution is its starting point – about which we…

Early one morning in 1985, a pair of researchers trekked into a spit of Colombian rainforest surrounded by coffee plantations. Their task was to identify all the epiphytes — plants that grow on other plants — in the forest canopy. As Jan Wolf, a botanist now at the University of Amsterdam, measured tree trunk girth…