Reviews Science & Society Some science seems silly, but it’s still worthwhile A new book argues basic science can unexpectedly better human lives These glowing fish were genetically modified with green fluorescent protein, the compound that revolutionized biological research and earned Osamu Shimomura the 2008 Nobel Prize in chemistry. When Shimomura began studying luminescent sea creatures in the 1950s, scientists avoided the research because it was considered challenging and unpredictable. SAM YEH/AFP via Getty Images By Karen Kwon 2 hours ago The Salmon Cannon and the Levitating FrogCarly Anne YorkBasic Books, $30 What’s the purpose of your study? It’s the question many basic-science researchers dread. And it’s the question that Carly Anne York received about 10 years ago from a fellow volunteer at the Virginia Zoo. At the time, York was a Ph.D. student studying squid biomechanics. When the volunteer, a retired army officer, probed why taxpayer dollars should be spent on what he called “silly science,” all York could do was mutter about the inherent value of knowledge. Sign up for our newsletter We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

News Health & Medicine RSV wasn’t as hard on U.S. babies last winter. This may be why It was the first RSV season a maternal vaccine and a monoclonal antibody were widely available A hospitalized infant receives treatment for bronchiolitis, a lung infection most commonly caused by respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV. In the first RSV season that a maternal vaccine and a monoclonal antibody to prevent severe RSV lung infections in babies were widely available, RSV hospitalization rates for infants up to 7 months old dropped, compared with earlier seasons. BSIP SA/Alamy Stock Photo By Aimee Cunningham 1 hour ago Last winter’s respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, season wasn’t as brutal for U.S. babies. A new study suggests two preventive tools — a maternal vaccine and a monoclonal antibody for infants — may have helped. The 2024-25 RSV season was the first in which the vaccine and the monoclonal antibody, which can prevent severe RSV lung infections in babies, were widely available. A study of two hospital surveillance systems found that RSV hospitalization rates last winter for babies up to 7 months old were lower than in two combined RSV seasons prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers report May 8 in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. Those earlier RSV seasons were the most recent that were typical — meaning not altered by the COVID-19 pandemic — without the RSV preventive tools. Sign up for our newsletter We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

Tech New audio tech could let you listen privately without headphones With acoustic metasurfaces, researchers bend sound waves to their will Scientists are developing technology to deliver private audio directly to a listener’s ears out in the open so that others nearby can’t hear it. PETER CROWTHER By Ananya Palivela 36 seconds ago Controlling sound has long been a staple of science fiction and fantasy. In Dune, the cone of silence allows characters to converse privately, even in open spaces. The eerie billboards of Blade Runner 2049 whisper advertisements into the ears of those passing by. In the real world, quirks of architecture, intentional or not, can direct where sound goes. In the U.S. Capitol’s hall of statues, for example, a whisper can travel silently across the room from one spot to another. The sound waves interact with curved surfaces to focus the audio. Now, scientists are looking to precisely control sound, perhaps one day resulting in a world without earbuds, but directing sound waves is a challenge. Sign up for our newsletter We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

Skip to content News Oceans Seafloor amber may hold hints of a tsunami 115 million years ago Formations in the tree resin point to massive waves that sucked a forest into the sea A layer of amber tops a piece of sandstone. These sediments, unearthed from a quarry in Japan, were once on the deep seafloor. Formations in the golden resin hint at ancient tsunamis. A. Kubota et al./Scientific Reports 2025 By Katherine Kornei 11 hours ago Wavelike patterns in 115-million-year-old amber suggest that a long-ago tsunami inundated what is now northern Japan, researchers report May 15 in Scientific Reports. Tsunamis can be destructive and, to anything alive nearby, often terrifying. But the physical damage wrought by these giant waves eventually erodes away, typically leaving behind little evidence of their passage. As a result, there’s scant records of tsunamis stretching back beyond the current geologic epoch, which began roughly 12,000 years ago. Sign up for our newsletter We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

News Genetics What gene makes orange cats orange? Scientists figured it out Calico and tortoiseshell cats also carry an X-chromosome mutation Orange fur in domestic cats usually arises from a specific DNA deletion in the X chromosome, two new studies suggest. Stefano Stefani/Getty Images By McKenzie Prillaman 7 hours ago Orange cats are so goofy that people joke that the chaotic kitties share one communal brain cell. But most of these domestic felines — along with multicolored calicos and tortoiseshells — actually do share something: a single genetic mutation that makes their fur ginger, researchers report in two studies published May 15 in Current Biology. The independent teams identified a DNA deletion that causes pigment cells to produce a yellow-red color rather than the default brown-black, solving a mystery that has stumped scientists for decades.  Sign up for our newsletter We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

News Health & Medicine FDA plan to ban fluoride supplements baffles and alarms dental experts The move could mean further oral health decay, especially in rural areas Fluoride tablets and drops are prescribed to prevent tooth decay in places without fluoride in the water, such as U.S. rural communities. geckophotos/ iStock/Getty Images Plus By Tina Hesman Saey 9 seconds ago 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 can be ingested by children from the market, citing concerns about potential harm to gut microbes, links to thyroid disorders, weight gain and decreased IQ. Sign up for our newsletter We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

News Health & Medicine An at-home cervical cancer screening device was OK‘d by the FDA The Teal Wand is the first self-collection device of its kind for home use  The FDA has approved the Teal Wand, a new device for at-home cervical cancer screening. Nicole Morrison/Teal Health By Meghan Rosen 34 seconds ago Screening for cervical cancer many soon be possible within the privacy of your own home. On May 9, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the Teal Wand, a tamponlike tool people can use to collect cells from their vagina. It’s the first self-collection device approved for at-home use in the United States and could broaden access to cervical cancer screening. The concept is simple. Patients swab themselves with the wand then send it back to Teal Health, the company that makes the device, for analysis. It’s looking for traces of HPV, the virus to blame for nearly all cervical cancer cases. According to Teal Health, Wand rollout will begin in June in California and later nationwide. The company’s medical providers will prescribe the device to eligible patients, who will be able to access their results via Teal Health’s telehealth service.  Sign up for our newsletter We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

Plants Cryopreservation is not sci-fi. It may save plants from extinction Scientists want to deep-freeze plants for future revival Magnolia trees (a photo illustration of a flower, shown) are among the plants that researchers want to cryopreserve. TED VANCLEAVE (Magnolia) and The Voorhes (Ice)/Gallery Stock By Sujata Gupta 1 hour ago 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 from the ground, volunteer field assistant Jan Klomp, an economist by training, clipped into a harness and climbed up a tall tree. From his high perch, Klomp called down to say he had discovered something more familiar in the Netherlands than in the rainforest: tulips. Perplexed, Wolf scoured the forest floor for fallen flowers. Sign up for our newsletter We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

News Space Perseverance takes the first picture of a visible Martian aurora Future astronauts will be able to observe the ethereal lights with their own eyes Martian auroras may appear to future astronauts as a faint, green glow that hangs low in the night sky, as shown in this illustration. Alex McDougal-Page By Nikk Ogasa 2 hours ago On some Martian nights, a subtle, green glow hangs low in the sky, wreathing the horizon in every direction. A visible Martian aurora has finally been observed for the first time, researchers report May 14 in Science Advances. The observation, made March 18, 2024, by the Perseverance rover, is also the first of an aurora from the surface of a planet that isn’t Earth. Moreover, it suggests future astronauts may witness ethereal Martian auroras with their own eyes. “It would be a dull or dim green glow to astronauts’ eyes,” says Roger Wiens, a planetary scientist at Purdue University in Lafayette, Ind. Auroras can appear when charged particles from space interact with a planet’s atmosphere. They’ve already been spotted on Mercury, Jupiter and every other non-Earth planet in our solar system, but only from orbit. And in Mars’ sky, scientists had only been able to detect auroral wavelengths of light invisible to the naked eye, using instruments. So it wasn’t clear how Martian auroras would appear to future, landed astronauts. On March 18, 2024, instruments aboard the Perseverance rover captured an image of a Martian aurora. Though relatively faint, the aurora’s green hues (left) can be made out by comparing the image with one of the typical inky Martian night (right). Due to the phenomenon’s subtle nature, the rover’s instruments were pointed at a low angle over the horizon to peer through a thick layer of the atmosphere. E.W. Knutsen et al/Science Advances 2025 Compared to many Earthly aurora photos, the new image from Mars is fuzzy. There are a couple reasons for that. First, Perseverance’s cameras perform less well at night, Wiens says. “The instruments aren’t tremendously more sensitive than human eyes,” he says. And second, Mars doesn’t have a global magnetic field that concentrates auroras near its poles like Earth does. Instead, its crust is magnetized in patches. That means auroras can appear all over the planet, but they’re relatively dim. Sign up for our newsletter We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

Skip to content News Paleontology This exquisite Archaeopteryx fossil reveals how flight took off in birds Analyses of the fossil show never-before-seen feathers and bones from the first known bird When viewed under ultraviolet light, the soft tissues and fine skeletal details of the new Archaeopteryx specimen become visible. Delaney Drummond, ©Field Museum By Carolyn Gramling 1 hour ago An exceptionally preserved specimen of the ancient bird Archaeopteryx offers the most detailed window yet into the evolution of flight, researchers report online May 14 in Nature. The remarkable preservation of the specimen — the 14th Archaeopteryx ever unearthed — means that researchers can study aspects of the ancient bird that were previously difficult to discern, from the anatomy of its skull to the arrangement of its feathers to the soft tissues on its hands and feet. Sign up for our newsletter We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

News Health & Medicine HHS says new vaccines should be tested against placebos. They already are Redundant testing could reduce protection from infectious diseases Vaccines are already rigorously assessed for safety and efficacy, both before and after they’re available to the public, health experts say. Jose Luis Pelaez Inc/Getty Images By McKenzie Prillaman 1 hour ago The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ potential plan to alter vaccine testing has baffled health experts, who worry it could reduce protection from infectious diseases and waste time and money. The agency said in a recent statement that it intends to require all new vaccines be compared with inert placebos, like saline shots, in clinical trials. HHS claims the move will increase transparency and is a “radical departure from past practices,” according to a statement to Science News from an agency spokesperson. Sign up for our newsletter We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

News Animals Wild chimpanzees give first aid to each other A long-term study in Uganda offers glimpses at the origins of human medicine Two chimpanzees groom each other. Chimps in Uganda’s Budongo Forest have also been observed treating each other’s injuries by licking, dabbing with leaves and other methods. E. Freymann By Martin J. Kernan 11 seconds ago For wounded chimpanzees, help sometimes comes in the form of first aid — care rendered not by humans but by other chimps. New research reveals the nature and prevalence of these rarely witnessed events. Thirty years of observations in Uganda’s Budongo Forest reveal that chimp-administered health care — both ape-to-ape care and self-care — happens frequently there, say primatologist Elodie Freymann of the University of Oxford and colleagues. She suspects these behaviors, occasionally glimpsed outside of Budongo, are widespread among chimps. Sign up for our newsletter We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

Skip to content News Plants A leaf’s geometry determines whether it falls far from its tree Round leaves land near the tree, while lobed, asymmetrical leaves fly far Scientists have shown that leaves’ shapes and symmetry let them fall close to the tree — allowing the tree access to the nutrients in them. Vicente Méndez/Getty Images By Bethany Brookshire 2 hours ago An apple may not fall far from the tree, but for a leaf, it depends on its shape. Elm or apple leaves — oval and symmetrical, with few protruding lobes — fall quickly, making them likely to end up close to the tree’s base. Adding lobes and asymmetry to leaves slows their descent, causing them to fall farther away, physicists Matthew Biviano and Kaare Jensen report May 7 in Journal of the Royal Society Interface. Sign up for our newsletter We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

Health & Medicine Humans have shockingly few ways to treat fungal infections Antifungal vaccines and drugs are in the works, but progress is achingly slow Fungi-infested zombies in The Last of Us are hard to kill. Fungal infections are on the rise in the real world, and while they don’t zombify people, there are precious few antifungal treatments. Courtesy of HBO By Tina Hesman Saey 10 seconds ago Fighting fungi isn’t easy. Season two of the streaming series The Last of Us has arrived on Max (light spoilers ahead), bringing viewers back to a world where people combat zombies puppeteered by a mind-controlling fungus. Guns and flames help the characters survive onscreen. In the real world, fighting fungal infections is less action-packed, but no less fraught. At the heart of the show is Ellie (Bella Ramsey), a girl immune to the pandemic fungus. The new season picks up after Joel (Pedro Pascal) saves Ellie from a doctor who wanted to remove her brain to find the source of her immunity and make a cure. Sign up for our newsletter We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

News Animals This tool-wielding assassin turns its prey’s defenses into a trap Pahabengkakia piliceps hunts stingless bees by employing a chemical lure at hive entrances An assassin bug (Pahabengkakia piliceps) hunts stingless bees at the entrance of their nest. Zhaoyang Chen By Siddhant Pusdekar 59 minutes ago Add a little-known species of assassin bugs to the list of animals that can fashion and wield tools. And true to their name, the insects use that tool to draw their prey into an ambush, researchers report May 12 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Found in Thailand and China, Pahabengkakia piliceps is a species of predatory insects called assassin bugs that has a taste for the region’s stingless bees. When researchers at Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden in China began studying the assassin bugs in 2021, they became intrigued by how P. piliceps hunt. While lying in wait at a hive’s entrance, the assassin bugs use their front legs to proficiently pick off bees that fly by. Sign up for our newsletter We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

News Chemistry A chemical in plastics is tied to heart disease deaths In 2018, more than 350,000 excess heart disease deaths were linked to phthalates Some plastic food packaging contains phthalates, which are chemicals added to make the plastic flexible. One phthalate, known as DEHP, could be responsible for 13.5 percent of deaths from cardiovascular disease in 2018, according to a new study. DigiPub/Getty Images By Skyler Ware 1 hour ago A common chemical in household plastics has been linked with heart disease deaths. In 2018, about 13.5 percent of the more than 2.6 million deaths from cardiovascular disease among people ages 55 to 64 globally could have been related to exposure to a type of chemical called a phthalate, researchers report April 28 in eBioMedicine. Phthalates are a group of chemicals found in shampoos, lotions, food packaging and medical supplies including blood bags. The chemicals are often added to plastics to make them softer and more flexible. Sign up for our newsletter We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

News Environment Skyborne specks of life may influence rainfall patterns A buildup of small particles of bacteria, pollen and spores may lead to rainier weather Bacteria, pollen, spores and other biological particles released by ecosystems may have a profound influence on rainfall patterns. zpagistock/Getty Images By Nikk Ogasa 30 seconds ago Sprinklings of life appear key to the recipe for rain. Lofted flecks of organic material like bacteria, pollen and fungal spores play a profound role in regulating rainfall patterns, a new study suggests. These bioparticles can make up a major portion of all the particles that can seed rain in the sky, and their levels fluctuate in a daily cycle, researchers report May 5 in npj Climate and Atmospheric Science. The study is the first to clearly show that the movements of bioparticles drive daily fluctuations of rainmaking particles more broadly. “This really has not been included in any [weather] models before,” says atmospheric scientist Athanasios Nenes of EPFL, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne. “It’s something we need to start thinking about.” Sign up for our newsletter We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

News Animals Chimp chatter is a lot more like human language than previously thought By combining different sounds, the apes unlock sophisticated communication abilities A female wild chimpanzee (shown) uses vocal communication. The apes combine single sounds to create phrases with new meanings, much like in human language, a new study finds. Liran Samuni/ Taï Chimpanzee Project By Jake Buehler 3 hours ago Grunts, barks, screams and pants ring through Taï National Park in Cȏte d’Ivoire. Chimpanzees there combine these different calls like linguistic Legos to relay complex meanings when communicating, researchers report May 9 in Science Advances. Chimps can combine and flexibly rearrange pairs of sounds to convey different ideas or meanings, an ability that investigators have not documented in other nonhuman animals. This system may represent a key evolutionary transition between vocal communication strategies of other animals and the syntax rules that structure human languages. Sign up for our newsletter We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

News Archaeology Neandertals may have hunted in horse-trapping teams 200,000 years ago New dating of Germany’s Schöningen site rewrites the timeline of complex group behavior Neandertals organized in teams and wielding wooden spears ambushed horses at an ancient lakeshore about 200,000 years ago, a new study finds. olgaIT/Getty Images By Bruce Bower 1 hour ago Neandertals formed sophisticated hunting parties that drove wild horses into fatal traps around 200,000 years ago. At Germany’s Schöningen site, wooden spears, double-pointed sticks, stone artifacts and butchered remains of more than 50 horses of various ages are some 100,000 years younger than previously thought, researchers report May 9 in Science Advances. Excavations of this material, now linked to a time when Neandertals inhabited Europe, occurred in the 1990s along an ancient lakeshore. This new age estimate fits a scenario in which Neandertals learned enough about equine behavior to organize teams that guided horse families to ambush spots, say zooarchaeologist Jarod Hutson and colleagues. Sign up for our newsletter We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

News Health & Medicine How to fight Lyme may lie in the biology of its disease-causing bacteria Its unusual cell wall may hold clues for understanding and treating the tick-borne illness New insights into the molecular makeup of Borrelia burgdorferi bacteria, a tangle pictured here in its signature spiral shape, could lead to advances in understanding and treating Lyme disease. Callista Images/Connect Images/Getty Images Plus By Leah Rosenbaum 24 seconds ago Not all cell walls are created equal. Take the peculiar makeup of the Borrelia burgdorferi bacterium’s cell wall. It might play a role in lingering symptoms of Lyme disease — the most common tick-borne infection in the United States. That makeup might also be key to developing new treatments for the disease, researchers report in two studies published April 23 in Science Translational Medicine. Somewhere between 90,000 and nearly 500,000 people are diagnosed and treated for Lyme disease each year in the United States. About 15 percent of those people continue to experience symptoms including fatigue, body aches and memory problems even after the acute phase of the disease is treated — a condition called Post Treatment Lyme Disease Syndrome, or PTLDS. However scientists aren’t sure what causes the lingering symptoms of PTLDS once antibiotics have killed the living bacteria inside the body. Sign up for our newsletter We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

Some flowers smell like death, and for the same reason. Malodorous members of the Eurya (left, E. japonica pictured), Asarum (A. simile, middle) and Symplocarpus (S. renifolius, right) genera independently evolved changes in an enzyme that help them attract pollinating flies with the unlovely smell of rotting meat.

News Science & Society $1.8 billion in NIH grant cuts hit minority health research the hardest The cuts also target mental health and training programs A new study tallies federal cuts to the National Institutes of Health. Lydia Polimeni/NIH By Sujata Gupta 1 hour ago The headlines keep coming: Another federal grant funding medical research terminated. Another lab devoted to mental health losing its funding. Another clinical trial stopped. It’s all part of actions the Trump administration says are needed to make government more efficient or to eliminate funding related to diversity, equity and inclusion. Opponents say the cuts undermine crucial medical research, gut careers and damage U.S. leadership in science. “When policies shift this frequently, it creates an environment that is simply not conducive to conducting great science or solving big problems,” says Harlan Krumholz, a cardiovascular medicine specialist at Yale School of Medicine.  Sign up for our newsletter We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

News Health & Medicine Teens who want to quit vaping have another medication option A trial found the drug varenicline, used by adults to stop smoking, can help E-cigarettes like those shown here contain nicotine, a highly addictive drug. The medication varenicline, paired with counseling and text messaging support, can help teens and young adults quit vaping, a clinical trial found. R Kawka/Alamy Stock Photo By Aimee Cunningham 22 seconds ago Many teens who vape want to quit. A recent clinical trial suggests that a drug used to stop smoking can help. In the last four weeks of a 12-week trial, 51 percent of the 88 teens and young adults taking the drug varenicline, which was paired with counseling and text messaging support, abstained from vaping completely, researchers report April 23 in the Journal of the American Medical Association. That’s compared with only 14 percent of the 87 receiving the same support but taking a placebo drug. Sign up for our newsletter We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

News Health & Medicine Do cold-water plunges really speed post-workout muscle recovery? A new study is among the first to look at how women’s muscles rebound from extreme exercise Cold water plunges didn’t lead to signs of faster muscle recovery, a study of 30 young women suggests. Michele Ursi/Getty Images By Laura Sanders 2 hours ago Post-workout cold plunges may be having a moment, but a new study dunks on the practice. After a tough workout, muscle recovery was no better in women who immersed themselves in chilly water than in women who didn’t. No recovery benefits came from a hot soak, either. The decidedly tepid results appear May 7 in PLOS One. Thirty women completed five sets of 20 drop-jumps — grueling exercises that require a drop from a thigh-high box followed immediately by a powerful jump on the ground. Afterward, the exercisers, whose average age was 23, followed one of three recovery protocols: a 10-minute dip in 10° Celsius water, a 10-minute dip in 40° C water or nothing. Two hours after the first soak, the participants did another one. One, two and three days after the experiment, researchers looked for signs of muscle recovery, including muscle strength, soreness and swelling. They also measured creatine kinase, a marker of muscle damage in the blood. Sign up for our newsletter We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

News Archaeology Neandertals invented bone-tipped spears all on their own A newfound bone point predates tool-toting Homo sapiens’ arrival in Eastern Europe A sharpened 80,000-year-old animal bone fragment, photographed from three angles, may have been used by Neandertals as the pointy end of a projectile weapon. L.V. Golovonova et al/Journal of Archaeological Science 2025 By Taylor Mitchell Brown 7 seconds ago Neandertals may have been forging projectile weapons out of animal bones 50,000 years earlier than previously thought. A bone fragment unearthed from roughly 80,000-year-old rock in Europe shows signs of sharpening and bitumen residue — a sticky tar suggesting the point was once attached to some sort of shaft, perhaps to make a spear or other projectile weapon, archaeologist Liubov Golovanova and colleagues report in the July Journal of Archaeological Science. Neandertals made wooden spears as early as 300,000 years ago, but evidence of bone-tipped projectile weapons before 40,000 years ago is scarce. That makes the new finding the oldest and only known Neandertal-made bone-tipped projectile, the researchers say. Sign up for our newsletter We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

News Oceans Before altering the air, microbes oxygenated large swaths of the sea The finding suggests cyanobacteria were prevalent much earlier than previously thought Stromatolites (shown) are layered formations constructed mostly by microorganisms called cyanobacteria, the first photosynthesizers on Earth. Cyanobacteria helped oxygenate Earth’s atmosphere 2.4 billion to 2.1 billion years ago. Totajla/iStock/Getty Images By Nikk Ogasa 53 seconds ago Ancient oxygen-making microbes may have oxygenated large swaths of Earth’s seafloor hundreds of millions of years before the element filled the atmosphere. Geochemical analysis of sediments deposited roughly 2.6 billion years ago reveals that pulses of oxygen may have swept through large regions of the ocean, researchers report April 26 in Nature Geoscience. The findings suggest that cyanobacteria, the microorganisms responsible for oxygenating Earth’s atmosphere, were more widespread at the time than previously believed. This shows that not only had cyanobacteria already evolved, but they were around in vast numbers and had even oxygenated the seafloor, says geochemist Kurt Konhauser of the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, who was not involved in the study. And that, he says, means aerobic organisms might have evolved on the seabed long before oxygen permeated the sky. Sign up for our newsletter We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

News Archaeology British tin might have fueled the rise of some Bronze Age civilizations Large amounts of Bronze Age tin may have come from Cornwall and Devon, a new study suggests A contested new report concludes that tin from southwestern Britain proved essential for Late Bronze Age societies. Coastal British sites such as Saint Michael’s Mount, shown here, may have served as tin trading centers, researchers say. Helmut Hess/Moment/Getty Images By Bruce Bower 2 hours ago Where Bronze Age civilizations got large amounts of tin, a scarce metal, to mix with copper into the era’s namesake gold-colored metal has long puzzled archaeologists. A big part of the answer lies in Cornwall and Devon, two counties in southwestern England, a new study concludes. Farming communities began mining large tin ore deposits there around 4,200 years ago, say archaeometallurgist Alan Williams of Durham University in England and his colleagues. That metallic harvest spread through trade routes, supplying societies in northern and central Europe around 3,800 years ago and Eastern Mediterranean societies about 3,400 years ago, the scientists report May 6 in Antiquity. Archaeologists date the Bronze Age to between roughly 5,000 and 3,000 years ago. Sign up for our newsletter We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

News Health & Medicine Lining medical stents with hairlike fuzz could fend off infections Sea star–inspired cilia washed away infection-promoting bacterial buildup in a prototype Lining stents and catheters with hairlike structures called cilia (shown) could make them easy to clean, reducing the need for frequent replacements, according to a new study. Pedro Amado and Cornel Dillinger By McKenzie Prillaman 40 seconds ago Covering stents with hairlike structures called cilia may help keep the implanted medical tubes clean, preventing infection, researchers report April 28 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. When exposed to ultrasound waves — which would be generated by equipment outside the body — the cilia wiggle and flush out substances stuck to the devices. Crystallized compounds and a sticky biofilm made by microbes often cause urinary stents and catheters to stop working, says biomedical engineer Francesco Clavica of the University of Bern in Switzerland. The tubes drain urine in the body’s “wet and warm environment, so it’s the perfect environment for bacteria to grow.” Sign up for our newsletter We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

News Physics Physicists explain how cheese rosettes form Flowery curls of Tête de Moine result from variations in the friction between the blade and the cheese  The cheese known as Tête de Moine is served by scraping it with a rotating blade to form rosettes (pictured). The shapes form because the friction between the blade and the cheese's rind is lower than the friction in the center of the wheel, physicists report. Juergen Pfeiffer/imageBROKER/Getty Images Plus By Emily Conover 13 seconds ago The Swiss cheese known as Tête de Moine or “monk’s head” is served in a peculiar fashion. A specially designed blade scrapes off thin slices of the cheese wheel, rotating around its surface like a hand of a clock. This process forms thin, frilly cheese rosettes. Now, scientists have uncovered the physics behind these cheese flowers. It all comes down to the friction between the cheese and the blade, physicist Jishen Zhang and colleagues report in a paper accepted to Physical Review Letters. Sign up for our newsletter We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

News Space A Soviet spacecraft will crash to Earth this month The craft was bound for Venus, but has been stuck in Earth orbit for more than 50 years A commemorative postage stamp printed in Russia shows the Venera 8 spacecraft, including an illustration in the background of the descent probe parachuting to the planet’s surface. A twin probe that has been stuck in Earth’s orbit for more than 50 years is due to fall to Earth in mid-May. Alexander Mitrofanov / Alamy Stock Photo By Lisa Grossman 2 hours ago A Soviet space probe stuck in orbit since a failed 1972 launch is expected to crash to Earth this month. The spacecraft, dubbed Kosmos 482, is predicted to reenter Earth’s atmosphere on May 12, according to a spokesperson for the U.S. Space Force. A different calculation by satellite analyst Marco Langbroek at Delft Technical University in the Netherlands predicts reentry on May 10. The exact landing site won’t be known until shortly before impact. But it’s unlikely the probe will hurt anyone or even land in a populated area, says astronomer Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass. “It is alarming, but not end-of-the-world alarming.” Sign up for our newsletter We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.