Headlines

Why Greenland is indispensable to global climate science

A 30-minute stroll across New York's Central Park separates Trump Tower from the American Museum of Natural History. If the US president ever found himself inside the museum he could see the Cape York meteorite: a 58-ton mass of iron taken from northwest Greenland and sold in

River chemistry insights may boost coastal ocean modeling

Rivers deliver freshwater, nutrients, and carbon to Earth's oceans, influencing the chemistry of coastal seawater worldwide. Notably, a river's alkalinity and the levels of dissolved inorganic carbon it brings to the sea help to shape regional conditions for marine life,

A new crystal makes magnetism twist in surprising ways

Florida State University scientists have engineered a new crystal that forces atomic magnets to swirl into complex, repeating patterns. The effect comes from mixing two nearly identical compounds whose mismatched structures create magnetic tension at the atomic level. These

Persistent shock wave around dead star puzzles astronomers

Gas and dust flowing from stars can, under the right conditions, clash with a star's surroundings and create a shock wave. Now, astronomers using the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (ESO's VLT) have imaged a beautiful shock wave around a dead star—a

Why music brings no joy to some people

A small group of people experience no pleasure from music despite normal hearing and intact emotions. Brain imaging reveals that their auditory and reward systems fail to properly communicate, leaving music emotionally flat. Researchers developed a questionnaire to measure how

A massive gene hunt reveals how brain cells are made

A large genetic screen has revealed how stem cells transform into brain cells, exposing hundreds of genes that make this process possible. Among the discoveries is PEDS1, a gene now linked to a previously unknown neurodevelopmental disorder in children. When PEDS1 does not work