- Climate change could threaten monarch mass migration
Suitable milkweed habitat in Mexico may shift south, fracturing existing migration routes and possibly pushing some butterflies to stay put.
- Metal pollution from a rocket reentry detected for the first time
Direct detection of lithium from a SpaceX rocket reentry offers new evidence that metal pollution from space debris could threaten the ozone layer.
- Here’s why sneakers squeak on the basketball court
Tiny, repeating detachments between sole and floor — thousands of times a second — create the distinctive squeak heard on the court, data show.
- Keeping a beat wins caterpillars friends in low places
Finding a caterpillar with rhythm was “mind-blowing,” suggesting it might be a more widespread part of animal communication than thought.
- An African monkey ate a rope squirrel and came down with mpox
Fecal analyses and necropsies suggest a fire-footed rope squirrel was the source of a 2023 mpox outbreak among sooty mangabeys in Côte d’Ivoire.
- Intricate silk helps net-casting spiders ensnare prey in webs
Rufous net-casting spiders can tune the stiffness and elasticity of their webs thanks to loops of silk, scanning electron microscope images reveal.
- A lab on wheels is tracking HIV spread in war-torn Ukraine
During a test drive, the mobile lab van uncovered a drug-resistant HIV strain that sprung up after the ongoing war with Russia started.
- Venus has a massive lava tube
A collapsed lava tube detected in 30-year-old radar data from Venus may be part of a much wider network of underground caves.
- Iron Age mass grave may hold unusual victims: mostly women and children
A land dispute may have led to the massacre 3,000 years ago, suggesting Europe’s transition to farming wasn’t always peaceful.
- Wanderlust may be written in our DNA
A new study suggests that inherited traits explain a small but measurable share of why some people relocate far from where they were born.