Science News for Students

Warning: Climate change can harm your health

The impacts of climate change can hurt kids’ mental health in a wide range of ways.

AntonioGuillem/iStock/Getty Images Plus

Climate change poses mental health risks to children and teens

a photo of a Myanmar farmer woman carrying two baskets from a shoulder pole

One feature of Earth’s changing climate is warmer temperatures. This extra heat will hurt outdoor workers by reducing how much work they can get done.

Nikada/E+/Getty Images

Workers won’t work as well in a very warm world

a young man standing outside in the sunshine and sweating in very hot weather

As temperatures skyrocket, the body may not be able to shed excess heat well enough to remain healthy. And not all age groups may suffer equally.

shakzu/iStock/Getty Images Plus

Weather & Climate

Explainer: How heat kills

an animated image showing a researcher igniting methane escaping from a frozen lake

Methane, a highly flammable gas, gets trapped under the ice of some Arctic lakes in winter. If a hole is punched through the ice, the escaping gas can be lit into a fireball.

University of Alaska Fairbanks

Weather & Climate

Strange lake belches flammable gas in the high Arctic

a chalkboard with the symbol for female, transgender, and male individuals drawn on it in chalk

Top Story

Transgender researchers want to make an impact

Trans and non-binary people are becoming more visible in science and engineering

a photo of a man in active wear sweating outside

Novel fabric could turn perspiration into power

Sweat already works to cool you down; this teen also wants it to power you up to get even cooler

a photo of Andrey Gizdov holding a skull at Intel ISEF 2019

New forensic technique may better gauge age at death

Used with skulls, the estimates should fall within three years of an adult’s actual age

a macro photo of an Aedes aegypti mosquito

Geneticists get closer to knowing how mosquitoes sniff out our sweat

A protein in the antennae of at least one species detects lactic acid coming off human skin

Lucy Lake holds her bumpy rower's oar design at Intel ISEF 2019

Bumpy edges could be key to record-breaking oars

Innovative design was inspired by a whale’s flippers

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Editor's Picks

Starting in May 2019, the kilogram will be defined by measurements from a device called the Kibble balance. This is a LEGO model of that device, at the National Institutes of Standards and Technology.

NIST

Physics

Scientists vote to fix the world’s weight-loss problem

Dragon fire is the realm of fantasy. But if a dragon did exist, nature’s got the tools to give it fire-breathing abilities.

Grandfailure/iStockphoto

Technically Fiction

Animals

Nature shows how dragons might breathe fire

This is the skeleton of a dire wolf.

James St. John/Wikimedia Commons (CC-BY-2.0)

Scientists Say

Animals

Scientists Say: Dire wolf

Trending

an illustration of a planet with two stars

A teen scientist from New York has discovered several distant exoplanets, including a world that orbits two suns (artist’s concept shown).

T. Pyle/NASA/JPL-Caltech

Teen astronomer finds a planet with two suns

A photo of astronauts Scott and Mark Kelly

Astronaut Scott Kelly (left) spent a year in space on the International Space Station while his identical twin brother, astronaut Mark Kelly (right), remained on Earth. They were part of a landmark study to help researchers understand how space flight affects the human body.

NASA

the top three award winners for 2019 Intel ISEF

The top three award winners rejoice in their triumph at the 2019 Intel ISEF competition in Phoenix, Ariz. From left: Allison Jia, 17; Krithik Ramesh, 16; and Rachel Seevers, 17.

C. Ayers Photography/SSP

Young researchers take home almost $5 million at 2019 Intel ISEF competition

a photo of a sea turtle named Kent who was injured in a boat accident

Sea turtles like this one can't survive in the wild after they've been injured by boats. A teen has developed a new vest that she hopes will set them free.

The Turtle Hospital

Teen designs belt to hold down a sea turtle’s bubble butt

a sea urchin, Heliocidaris erythrogramma, tucked into some rocks underwater

Sea urchins inspired a strong new medical staple

Three teens used the animals’ spines as the idea behind a new way to close wounds — and keep them shut

two girls work on a math problem together on a whiteboard

Mathematics

Science is helping kids become math masters

Experts develop strategies to help more students succeed in this oft-dreaded subject

a photo of a Guinea worm wound sticking out of a person's leg, and wound around a matchstick

Science Education

Scientists Say

Scientists Say: Guinea worm

This parasite invades people’s bodies through their drinking water, and leaves through their skin

Young researchers take home almost $5 million at 2019 Intel ISEF competition

Three top winners created medical advances; fourth developed jellyfish-inspired system for aquatic propulsion

a photo of Natalie Yam holding a small-scale model of her rectangular origami paper parachuet

How to develop more ecofriendly parachutes for disaster relief

Make them out of paper, and give them origami folds

Blogs

People sweat to stay cool. But one teen wants to punch up the power of perspiration.

wundervisuals/E+/Getty Images Plus

Novel fabric could turn perspiration into power

Andrey Gizdov, 18, came up with a new and potentially better way to estimate the age at death for human remains. It’s based on a CT scan of the person's skull.

Kyle Ryan/SSP

New forensic technique may better gauge age at death

Lucy Lake, an 18-year-old 12th-grader from Sydney, Australia, shows off her design for a better rower’s oar. Its scalloped edges were inspired by the bumpy flippers of humpback whales.

C. Ayers Photography/SSP

Bumpy edges could be key to record-breaking oars

Watch your step! That’s a sea urchin. Their spines may hurt, but South Korean teens used them as the inspiration for a better way to close wounds.

Peter Southwood/Wikimedia Commons (CC-SA-3.0)

Sea urchins inspired a strong new medical staple

Body & Brain

Geneticists have figured out one protein that an Aedes aegypti mosquito (shown) needs to sniff out the lactic acid in human sweat.

Alex Wild

Geneticists get closer to knowing how mosquitoes sniff out our sweat

NASA

a mosquito drinking blood from a human and peeing

A peeing mosquito (seen here) could now reveal what viruses have been in the blood it has drunk. A new trap that collects the pee could lead to easier, cheaper and safer ways to check for lurking human diseases.

James Gathany/CDC

Testing mosquito pee could help track disease spread

an image from the Netflix show "13 Reasons Why" showing the character Hannah Baker talking to someone at her locker

13 Reasons Why is a show about the suicide of Hannah Baker (left). Scientists and medical professionals worried that people who watched the show might be at higher risk for suicide themselves.

Beth Dubber/Netflix

Psychology

Is the Netflix show 13 Reasons Why linked to suicide?

a photo of Supraja Sayee Srinivasan and Kunjal Bharatkumar in front of their poster at Intel ISEF 2019

GPS jewelry helps refugee moms and kids stay healthy

New system helps mothers track when kids need vaccinations and lets health workers locate people in need

Huai-pu Chen holding his new fish tag in front of his poster at ISEF 2019

This fish ‘tag’ runs on fish power

A teen developed an electrically powered tag that runs on the power provided by a fish’s swimming

A comparison to his twin looks at how long-term spaceflight changes the human body

Teen astronomer finds a planet with two suns

The distant world might seem familiar to Luke Skywalker

a photo of a white and brown owl sitting in a tree

Two teens pull DNA from birds out of the air

Their new technique could help scientists track birds, using the DNA they leave behind

Space

NASA

Some dust in Earth’s atmosphere may hail from beyond Neptune

Some interplanetary dust grains that end up in Earth’s atmosphere may have traveled long distances. They may hail from the Kuiper Belt (illustrated). It is a region of icy objects out beyond Neptune that orbit the sun.

ESA

Astronomy

the first ever photo of a black hole, an orange and red aura surrounding a dark round spot

The first image of a black hole shows a bright ring with a dark, central spot. That ring is a bright disk of gas orbiting the supermassive behemoth in the galaxy M87. The spot is the black hole’s shadow.

Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration

Astronomy

Here’s the first picture of a black hole

a photo of the ALMA array, a group of radio telescopes with large dishes

A network of telescopes across the globe — including ALMA in Chile (partially shown here) — teamed up to create the Event Horizon Telescope. It’s a virtual radio dish almost as big as Earth.

Carlos Padilla/AUI/NRAO

Astronomy

It took a ‘virtual’ telescope to actually picture a black hole

Invention & Innovation

a young boy smiling and sitting in wheelchair, he's wearing a blue hat

Chemotherapy can cause your hair to fall out and make you feel tired and sick. Delivering the chemo drugs inside nanoparticles could reduce these side effects by making sure the drug goes only to the cancer.

Steve Debenport/E+/Getty Images

Chemistry

Remote-controlled nanoparticles could fight cancer — gently

This sign in English and Arabic warns pedestrians that live land mines still litter this field in Afghanistan.

manxman/iStock/Getty Images Plus

Physics

Heat signatures help track down old and still deadly land mines

Kasper Moth-Poulsen shows off a solar collector

Kasper Moth-Poulsen shows off the solar collector his team used to test its liquid battery.

Johan Bodell/Chalmers University of Technology

Chemistry

Shape-shifting chemical is key to new solar battery

a photo of a porthole into an underwater habitat, fish are swimming past the round window

A new kind of glass can keep itself clean underwater. The key is microscopic pancake-shaped structures that let liquid flow between them.

ES3N/iStockphoto

Materials Science

A self-cleaning glass keeps itself spotless underwater

Teen designs belt to hold down a sea turtle’s bubble butt

Affected turtles can end up permanently afloat after a boat strike; this teen wants to right them again

Need a little luck? Here’s how to grow your own

Teen researcher from Japan uses plant hormone to boost leaf counts in clover

a photo of Prerna Magon, 18, at ISEF 2019 showing some of the cards for his game

Game may help rid people of biases they didn’t know they had

A teen designed the game to help people see different points of view

Testing mosquito pee could help track disease spread

West Nile and other diseases were detected in urine from wild insects caught in traps

STEM Careers

Proud to be different in STEM

LGBTQ+ scientists and engineers are coming out and becoming visible to support the next generation

Latest Headlines

People sweat to stay cool. But one teen wants to punch up the power of perspiration.

wundervisuals/E+/Getty Images Plus

Novel fabric could turn perspiration into power

Andrey Gizdov, 18, came up with a new and potentially better way to estimate the age at death for human remains. It’s based on a CT scan of the person's skull.

Kyle Ryan/SSP

New forensic technique may better gauge age at death

Geneticists have figured out one protein that an Aedes aegypti mosquito (shown) needs to sniff out the lactic acid in human sweat.

Alex Wild

Geneticists get closer to knowing how mosquitoes sniff out our sweat

Lucy Lake, an 18-year-old 12th-grader from Sydney, Australia, shows off her design for a better rower’s oar. Its scalloped edges were inspired by the bumpy flippers of humpback whales.

C. Ayers Photography/SSP