Science News for Students | News and feature articles from all fields of science

Climate Change Chronicles

a photo of a stream flowing through some woods taken from just above water level

Freshwater makes up just a tiny percent of the water on Earth. Yet we depend on it for everything from growing food to manufacturing to everyday uses at home. The averge American uses 340 liters (90 gallons) per day.

Valery Bocman/iStockphoto

Weather & Climate
A wave of change is coming to our planet’s water resources
a photo of heavy rain falling on a colorful umbrella outside

Rain is just one part of the planet’s water cycle.

RomoloTavani/iStockphoto

Weather & Climate
Explainer: Earth’s water is all connected in one vast cycle
A photo of Levi Draheim on a sunny day standing in front of a beach. His green shirt says "Climate Change is Real"

Twenty-one young people — including Levi Draheim, 11, from Satellite Beach, Fla. — have sued the U.S. government for actions that they say contributed to climate change.

Robin Loznak/Our Children’s Trust

Science & Society
Teens and tweens sue United States over climate change
a mailbox is almost underwater in front of a house during a flood from Harvey

Hurricane Harvey caused flooding in many areas around Houston, Texas, in 2017. Scientists now know that climate change made the storm wetter.

Revolution Messaging/Flickr (PUBLIC DOMAIN MARK 1.0)

Weather & Climate
The odd ways that weather can unfold in a warming world
A nightime photo of a wildfire engulfing a forest across a lake. Everything is tinged bright red and orange from the flames.

Extreme wildfires are becoming more common in many parts of the world.

Pinderphoto/iStockphoto

Environment
Is climate change fanning megafires?
a photo of a stream flowing through some woods taken from just above water level
Top Story
A wave of change is coming to our planet’s water resources
Thanks to climate change, Earth’s freshwater supplies will never be the same again
meteor shower over mountains
Astronomy
 
Catch a ‘shooting star’ this month — and most others
Rice-sized grains of space rock produce these meteor showers
an image of a smoke detector on the ceiling and smoke wafting below it
Science & Society
 
New smoke alarm tests a mother’s touch
Traditional alarms wake only half of sleeping kids, leaving many vulnerable to smoke and flames
cell-tweezers
Technology
 
Electro-tweezers let scientists safely probe cells
They allow repeated sampling of materials from the same living cell over time
a photo of a wombat facing towards the viewer
Animals
 
How wombats make their unique cube-shaped poop
The elasticity of the their intestines helps to shape those fecal cubes

Sponsor

Editor's Picks
dog running in snow
Animals
No frostbite for dogs
Manhattan snowstorm

Tall structures, such as skyscrapers, radio towers and wind turbines, may create conditions that greatly up the chance of cloud-to-ground lightning during windy snowstorms.

palinchakjr/iStockphoto

Weather & Climate
Explainer: What is thundersnow?
Anchorage, Alaska after 1964 quake
Earth
The quake that shook up geology
Trending
a photo of a stream flowing through some woods taken from just above water level

Freshwater makes up just a tiny percent of the water on Earth. Yet we depend on it for everything from growing food to manufacturing to everyday uses at home. The averge American uses 340 liters (90 gallons) per day.

Valery Bocman/iStockphoto

Weather & Climate
A wave of change is coming to our planet’s water resources
a zoomed in photo of a bee sitting on a fuzzy green and white plant against a black background

During the 2017 solar eclipse over the United States, citizen scientists recorded bee sounds to help researchers find out what the insects did when the day suddenly plunged into darkness. 

Susan Ellis, Bugwood.org

Animals
Bees stopped buzzing during the Great American Eclipse
a close-up photo of water being poured into a clear glass

Researchers are testing new ways to bring affordable water treatment to smaller towns and to people who use well water.

pinkomelet/iStockphoto

Technology
New ways to clean up polluted sources of drinking water
A nightime photo of a wildfire engulfing a forest across a lake. Everything is tinged bright red and orange from the flames.

Extreme wildfires are becoming more common in many parts of the world.

Pinderphoto/iStockphoto

Environment
Is climate change fanning megafires?
clownfish
Ecology
 
Scientists Say
Scientists Say: Symbiosis
This is a relationship between two species that live better by helping each other
an photo of an elephant holding its trunk to its mouth to eat some food
Animals
 
How do elephants eat cereal? With a pinch
Learning how elephant trunks pick up snacks could help engineers design flexible robots
a photo of heavy rain falling on a colorful umbrella outside
Weather & Climate
 
Explainer: Earth’s water is all connected in one vast cycle
Water is constantly on the move in an endless loop known as the water cycle
a photo of Sriram Bhimaraju holding a bow and pulling a notched arrow back
Computers & Electronics
 
Eureka! Lab
These young researchers take aim at sports
Archery apps, safety equipment and a ball-sorting robot all debut at Broadcom science competition
a zoomed in photo of a bee sitting on a fuzzy green and white plant against a black background
Animals
 
Bees stopped buzzing during the Great American Eclipse
A rare study of pollinators finds the insects responded to total darkness
Blogs
clownfish

This is a maroon anemonefish — otherwise known as a clownfish — with its anemone. The two have a symbiotic relationship.

Barry Peters/Wikimedia Commons (CC-BY-2.0)

Scientists Say
Scientists Say: Symbiosis
a photo of Sriram Bhimaraju holding a bow and pulling a notched arrow back

Sriram Bhimaraju invented a device and app to help archers practice their sport. His is just one of the sports-related inventions developed this year by Broadcom MASTERS finalists.

S. Bhimaraju 

Eureka! Lab
These young researchers take aim at sports
graphs

Bars on graphs may look different. But are they just an accident? Scientists call differences that probably didn’t occur by chance “statistically significant.”

 WDnet/istockphoto

Scientists Say
Scientists Say: Statistical significance
ISS Earth

This is the International Space Station, which orbits around the Earth.

NASA/Public Domain

Scientists Say
Scientists Say: Orbit
Body & Brain
a composite photo showing the progress Dadiv Mzee has made towards walking

David Mzee, 28, was paralyzed in 2010. He had five months of therapy that included electrical pulses to his spinal cord. With some help supporting his weight, Mzee (seen above in this composite image) now can walk for an hour at a time.

 © JAMANI CAILLET/EPFL

Brain
Zaps to spinal cord help paralyzed people walk
an illustration of marijuana leaves

Paying teens and young adults to stop using marijuana led to memory improvements after just one week, a new study finds.

Yarygin/iStockphoto

Brain
Young people’s memory improves after stopping marijuana use
An artists interpretation of a person smelling and directions (arrows) in their brain

The brain tangles up senses of smell and direction, a new study suggests.

E. Otwell

Brain
People may be literally led by their noses
a person holding a bug up to their mouth to take a bite

Billions of people around the world regularly eat bugs. Why do so many Westerners find the idea disgusting?

MauMyHaT/istockphoto

Culture
Why can’t bugs be grub?
a photo of eight tubes of small plastic, each a different color, poured onto a white surface
Materials Science
 
Some plastics learn to repair themselves
A self-healing material might help paints and plastics repair minor damage as it develops
graphs
Mathematics
 
Scientists Say
Scientists Say: Statistical significance
Scientists use this phrase when they think they have a result that is too different to have happened by accident
a composite photo showing the progress Dadiv Mzee has made towards walking
Brain
 
Zaps to spinal cord help paralyzed people walk
The treatment strengthens communication between brain and spinal cord
a photo of Chinese researcher Jiankui He presenting data on his claim of creating two gene-edited babies on November 28
Genetics
 
Scientist reports first gene editing of humans
The newborn twins could pass on their tweaked genes to future generations
a close-up photo of water being poured into a clear glass
Technology
 
New ways to clean up polluted sources of drinking water
Some succeed with hard-to-remove pollutants, others would lower the cost of treating water
Space
meteor shower over mountains

Commonly called ‘shooting stars,’ these streaks of light in the night sky are meteors caused by bits of space rock crashing into Earth’s atmosphere. The ones shown here are part of the annual Geminid shower.

sripfoto/iStockphoto

Astronomy
Catch a ‘shooting star’ this month — and most others
An illustration of what it might have looked like just before the InSight lander touched down on Mars. Pictured: a saucer shaped lander with three legs close the the Martian surface

This is an artist’s view of what it might have looked like when the InSight was about to touch down on Mars. The craft successfully landed November 26 on the Red Planet.

JPL-CALTECH/NASA

Space
Quake-scouting lander safely touches down on Mars
an illustration of the Kepler space telescope in space

Here’s an artist’s depiction of the Kepler space telescope at work scouting planets orbiting distant stars. Over its lifetime, this spacecraft turned up more than 2,700.

NASA

Space
R.I.P. Kepler, the planet-hunting telescope
a photo of the Arecibo radio telescope from the air

The Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico (here) has been used for decades in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). But these efforts have searched only a very tiny portion of the skies, new calculations suggest.

Courtesy NAIC-Arecibo Observatory, an NSF facility

Space
Only a small fraction of space has been searched for aliens
Invention & Innovation
an image of a smoke detector on the ceiling and smoke wafting below it

It took over two minutes for high-pitched smoke alarms to wake kids up. It took a motherly voice just two seconds.

nikkytok/iStockphoto

Science & Society
New smoke alarm tests a mother’s touch
cell-tweezers

These so-called tweezers can take out single molecules or structures from individual cells — such as mitochondria from nerve cells (illustrated here).

IMPERIAL COLLEGE LONDON

Technology
Electro-tweezers let scientists safely probe cells
a photo of eight tubes of small plastic, each a different color, poured onto a white surface

Polymers are an important ingredient in many materials, including the colorful plastics shown here. Scientists have developed a new polymer material to help repair small cracks that might develop in such polymer-based products.

XXLPhoto/iStockphoto

Materials Science
Some plastics learn to repair themselves
860_Lem_braille_graphics.png

A computer can read aloud as someone touches different parts of a raised-dot diagram. The text can be read in braille, too.

ViewPlus Technologies, Inc

Computers & Electronics
This printer makes ‘visual’ aids for people with sight problems
a bank of solar panels in front of a row of wind turbines on a sunny day
Environment
 
Renewable energy might be able to green a desert
Wind turbines and solar panels appear able to boost nearby rains — and plant growth
ISS Earth
Space
 
Scientists Say
Scientists Say: Orbit
This is the curved path an object takes around a planet, star or moon
An artists interpretation of a person smelling and directions (arrows) in their brain
Brain
 
People may be literally led by their noses
A new study suggests senses of smell and navigation are linked in the brain
antelope fossil
Archaeology
 
Fossils hint ancient humans passed through a green Arabia
Ancient animal bones and stone tools from the now-harsh region date back 300,000 years
a person holding a bug up to their mouth to take a bite
Culture
 
Why can’t bugs be grub?
Researchers are studying why some people think eating insects is gross — and how to change that
Latest Headlines
meteor shower over mountains

Commonly called ‘shooting stars,’ these streaks of light in the night sky are meteors caused by bits of space rock crashing into Earth’s atmosphere. The ones shown here are part of the annual Geminid shower.

sripfoto/iStockphoto

Astronomy
Catch a ‘shooting star’ this month — and most others
an image of a smoke detector on the ceiling and smoke wafting below it

It took over two minutes for high-pitched smoke alarms to wake kids up. It took a motherly voice just two seconds.

nikkytok/iStockphoto

Science & Society
New smoke alarm tests a mother’s touch
cell-tweezers

These so-called tweezers can take out single molecules or structures from individual cells — such as mitochondria from nerve cells (illustrated here).

IMPERIAL COLLEGE LONDON

Technology
Electro-tweezers let scientists safely probe cells
a photo of a wombat facing towards the viewer

Wombats are stout marsupials native to Australia. They use their cubelike droppings to mark their territory.

mlharing/iStockphoto

Animals
How wombats make their unique cube-shaped poop
Math & Technology
an image of a smoke detector on the ceiling and smoke wafting below it

It took over two minutes for high-pitched smoke alarms to wake kids up. It took a motherly voice just two seconds.

nikkytok/iStockphoto

Science & Society
New smoke alarm tests a mother’s touch
cell-tweezers

These so-called tweezers can take out single molecules or structures from individual cells — such as mitochondria from nerve cells (illustrated here).

IMPERIAL COLLEGE LONDON

Technology
Electro-tweezers let scientists safely probe cells
a close-up photo of water being poured into a clear glass

Researchers are testing new ways to bring affordable water treatment to smaller towns and to people who use well water.

pinkomelet/iStockphoto

Technology
New ways to clean up polluted sources of drinking water
860_Lem_braille_graphics.png

A computer can read aloud as someone touches different parts of a raised-dot diagram. The text can be read in braille, too.

ViewPlus Technologies, Inc

Computers & Electronics
This printer makes ‘visual’ aids for people with sight problems