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Physical World

Animals use physics? Let us count the ways

Cats twist and snakes slide, exploiting and negotiating physical laws. Scientists are figuring out how.

Hunting sky islands for genetic clues to climate resilience

OPINION: Isolated mountaintops are hotbeds of evolutionary adaptation and great places to study how climate change affects ecosystems

Moving trees north to save the forests

As the world warms, trees in forests such as those in Minnesota will no longer be adapted to their local climates. That’s where assisted migration comes in.

Losing the connection between the Andes and the Amazon: A price of peace in Colombia

The South American country, where the biodiversity of the Andes meets that of the Amazon, is losing the great natural wealth of some 1,500 square kilometers of forest each year, mainly in areas formerly under guerrilla control

Top science stories of 2023

Twelve standout news events and trends in a tumultuous year

Why scientists are making transparent wood

Stronger than plastic and tougher than glass, the resin-filled material is being exploited for smartphone screens, insulated windows and more

As glaciers retreat, new streams for salmon

Ecologist Sandy Milner has traveled to Alaska for decades to study the development of streams flowing from melting glaciers. He’s seen insects move in, alders and willows spring up, and spawning fish arrive in thousands.

How animals follow their nose

It’s not easy to find the source of a swirling scent plume. Scientists are using experiments and simulations to uncover the varied strategies that animals employ.

A treasure hunt for microbes in Chile’s Atacama desert

The famously dry region has long been dismissed as a mostly lifeless wasteland, good for little more than mining of minerals and precious metals. To these researchers, however, it’s a microbial gold mine worthy of protection.

Life in the soil was thought to be silent. What if it isn’t?

A handful of scientists have started to train their ears to the worms, grubs and roots underground. They were not prepared for what they heard.

Eyes on the deep

Decades of exploring the seafloor have helped oceanographer Samantha Joye tackle marine issues — from the underwater movement of oil from Deepwater Horizon to the biology of remote microbial communities

Keeping time with zircons

Crystals of the mineral zircon are rugged enough to survive the most violent geologic events. Impurities within them provide a time capsule of planetary history.

How coral atolls get their gorgeous ring shapes

Sea levels rising and falling over hundreds of thousands of years helped build up these special islands

How researchers are making do in the time of Covid

The coronavirus pandemic has shuttered labs and sidelined scientists all over the world. Here’s a look at how some of them have coped.

The origin of mud

For most of Earth’s history, hardly any of the mucky stuff existed on land. It finally started piling up around 458 million years ago, changing life on the planet forever.

Searching high and low for the origins of life

Researchers think they’re getting warmer: They’ve created amino acids and primitive membranes by simulating conditions found at scalding vents on the ocean floor

New projects broaden the search for alien signals from space

A longer list of Earth-like planets, eavesdropping on radio waves and looking for laser light shows: All raise the chances of detecting E.T.

Plasmonics brings the molecular world into sharper focus

People have been using metals to manipulate light for centuries. Now researchers are using it to create powerful biosensors.

As climate changes, so does life in the planet’s soils

To understand what might be lost, ecologist Janet K. Jansson taps molecular methods to explore Earth’s underground microbes, from the permafrost to the grasslands

The story of Snowball Earth

Ancient rocks suggest that ice entirely covered our planet on at least two occasions. This theory may help explain the rise of complex life that followed.

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