Science News for Students

Orca snot leads to a whale of a science-fair project

Young scientist studies a gene to probe whether there is more than one species of killer whale

Websites often don’t disclose who can have your data

Analyses suggest most data actually get shared widely with unnamed partners

How many ants is the best number of ants? More than one, fewer than 100

Ants make decisions faster in medium-size groups than in small or larger ones

Hurricane crisis inspires teen’s water-cleanup system

Intel ISEF finalist filters contaminants from water using readily available parts

Sponsor

Editor's Picks

Earth

Explainer: The volcano basics

Giant sea spiders may look strange, but their circulatory system is even weirder, new data show.

Tim Dwyer

Animals

Giant Antarctic sea spiders breathe really strangely

Explainer: What is Ebola?

Trending

Toxicology

Concerns explode over new health risks of vaping

More U.S. teens now vape from electronic cigarettes than smoke conventional tobacco cigarettes. They may think the high-tech devices yield a safe kick from nicotine. New studies suggest that even vaping may pose serious health hazards.

Toxicology

Vaping may harm the lungs

Lava flowing from new fissures along Kilauea’s eastern flank engulfed a street in Hawaii’s Leilani Estates on May 6.

U.S. Geological Survey

Earth

How long will Kilauea’s new eruption last?

Some Carolina Reapers (shown) have a spiciness rating of more than 2 million Scoville heat units. That would make them the hottest peppers in the world, according to Guinness World Records. The jalapeño, in contrast, tops out at only around 8,000 units.

LANCE CHEUNG/USDA

Owww! World’s hottest chili leads to days of severe headaches

Animals

Chemicals from the world’s longest animal can kill cockroaches

Poisons in this sea worm’s slime can knock off invasive green crabs, too

Pollution

Scientists Say

Scientists Say: Runoff

When water hits soil, it doesn’t stop there

Robots and ‘green energy’ win the day at Intel ISEF

Top awards go for a window-washing robot, low-cost big batteries and ‘green’ capacitors

Teen fights fake news, one newsfeed at a time

The right warning signs, he finds, may work for the right people

Oceans

Ocean heat waves are on the rise — and killing coral

But some coral species may be survivors, new research shows

Blogs

When killer whales surface to breathe, they start by expelling a mist — called a “blow” — which contains some of their DNA. A teen used DNA collected from that mist to look for a potentially key genetic difference in whales from several pods.

sergioboccardo/iStockphoto

Orca snot leads to a whale of a science-fair project

How many ants does it take to forage efficiently? It’s not a joke. And the answer, one teen found, is roughly what you see here.

cookelma/istockphoto

How many ants is the best number of ants? More than one, fewer than 100

After Hurricane Maria wiped out power and running water last year in Puerto Rico, National Guard troops helped bring in much needed drinking water. The crisis inspired one 2018 Intel ISEF finalist to develop a do-it-yourself water-filtration system.

Puerto Rico National Guard/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

Hurricane crisis inspires teen’s water-cleanup system

Water flowing out of these concrete pipes is runoff.

Detry26/iStockphoto

Scientists Say

Scientists Say: Runoff

Body & Brain

LANCE CHEUNG/USDA

Owww! World’s hottest chili leads to days of severe headaches

When researchers tattooed mouse tails, the only cells found with ink inside were immune cells. The tattoo appeared the same before (above) and after (below) these ink-holding cells had been killed. Why? New immune cells recaptured the ink.

A. BARANSKA ET AL/J. EXPT. MED. 2018

Cells

Inked mice hint at how tattoos live on

Mice that plumped out on a high-fat diet (right) lost a quarter of their taste buds (stained red). Compared to healthy-weight mice, they also had fewer of the kind of cells (stained green) that generate new taste buds.

A. Kaufman et al/PLOS Biology 2018

Obesity makes taste buds disappear — in mice, anyway

Mexico City is one major urban area frequently plagued by heavy air pollution. Studies conducted there and elsewhere show now link such pollution with lesions in the brains of adults and even children.

lanabyko/iStockphoto

Pollution

Dirty air can harm your brain and stress the body

Drug-detection system could help partygoers protect themselves

Worn as a bracelet, it allows people to test their alcoholic drinks for the presence of hidden drugs

Owww! World’s hottest chili leads to days of severe headaches

The ultra-hot offender is known as the Carolina Reaper

This robot can wash a skyscraper’s windows

Teen’s invention can spritz, wipe and squeegee clean the dirty panes on a high-rise building

Science-fair finding allows girl to sample a croissant

She tested if pills could break down proteins in bread that can make some people sick

Materials Science

New black hair dye uses no harsh chemicals

It lasts as long as store-bought products, but is nontoxic and environmentally friendly

Space

This young pulsar — or spinning, ultradense star (large white dot in center right) — is not far outside our Milky Way. Some details of such celestial bodies are not visible. They come only from radio transmissions, which can be masked by Wi-Fi signals on Earth.

NASA/CXC/Univ. of Potsdam/L. Oskinova et al.

Light & Radiation

Wireless devices crowd out cosmic radio signals and more

This is a new kind of aurora that can appear in the sky during displays of the northern lights. It is a purplish and green band of light known as STEVE.

KRISTA TRINDER

Astronomy

Meet STEVE, the northern lights in mauve

An artist’s view of a gigantic flare leaving Proxima Centauri in March 2017. This massive release of energy appears to fizzle hopes that its nearby Earth-mass planet can host life.

ROBERTO MOLAR CANDANOSA/CARNEGIE INSTITUTION FOR SCIENCE, SDO/NASA, JPL/NASA

Planets

Flared! How a planetary ‘neighbor’ may have been fried

Akatsuki spacecraft images show a cloud-covered atmosphere similar to Earth’s. Those clouds hide a hostile surface.

Damia Bouic/DARTS/ISAS/JAXA

Planets

Here’s why Venus is so unwelcoming

Invention & Innovation

Sharks have an uncanny ability to sense tiny electrical fields. It helps them home in on prey. A new electronic sensor now mimics that ability — and works in saltwater.

ShaneGross/iStockphoto

Electricity sensor harnesses a shark's secret weapon

In this artist’s illustration, gold nanoparticles (bright blue) covered in tiny hairs (shown in purple) surround a virus and attach to it. As more hairs attach, they squeeze the soft surface of the virus to find places to stick. That squeezing builds enough pressure to squash the virus.

Francesco Stellacci

Materials Science

Hairy nanoparticles put viruses in a deadly embrace

David Ma, an engineer at the University of Hawaii, led a team that developed a method to harvest electricity from the friction of a water droplet rolling across a surface.

UH Staff

This hydropower harnesses energy one water drop at a time

An electromagnetic coil around a limb would selectively heat metal in an artificial joint (shown inside coil) without hurting any surrounding muscle and bone. Researchers are testing this approach to treat infections on medical implants.

UT Southwestern Medical Center

Magnetic heating may replace surgery to cure some infections

Which bacteria hang out in belly buttons? Here’s a who’s who

As people age, they have more types — but fewer bugs overall

Science & Society

Hurdling poverty to find a life in science

Scientists and engineers share how they overcame one big career obstacle — growing up poor

STEM Careers

Enriching opportunities can point teens toward a STEM career

Programs from middle school on up help students stay on track in science and tech

STEM Careers

Ten tips to prepare for a career in science and tech

Researchers share advice on how to overcome a host of potential deal-breakers

Animals

In a colony, king penguins act like a liquid

These birds congregate during breeding season —but never too closely

Latest Headlines

sergioboccardo/iStockphoto

Orca snot leads to a whale of a science-fair project

The idea that people can learn who tracks where they go on the internet just by reading a website’s privacy policies “is pure fiction,” reports the author of a new data-privacy study.

oatawa/iStockphoto

Websites often don’t disclose who can have your data

How many ants does it take to forage efficiently? It’s not a joke. And the answer, one teen found, is roughly what you see here.

cookelma/istockphoto

How many ants is the best number of ants? More than one, fewer than 100

Puerto Rico National Guard/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

Hurricane crisis inspires teen’s water-cleanup system

Math & Technology

The idea that people can learn who tracks where they go on the internet just by reading a website’s privacy policies “is pure fiction,” reports the author of a new data-privacy study.

oatawa/iStockphoto

Websites often don’t disclose who can have your data

The top three award winners at the 2018 Intel ISEF competition are, from left: Meghana Bollimpalli, Oliver Nicholls and Dhruvik Parikh.

Chris Ayers/Society for Science & the Public