Science News for Students

a Syrian boy sitting in a refugee camp with his head on his hand

A Syrian boy sits in a refugee camp after civil war destroyed towns and rural areas throughout his country. Some scientists believe climate stresses could have played a role in triggering or worsening the Syrian conflict.

cloverphoto/iStock/Getty Images plus

Could climate change worsen global conflict?

a photo of refugees being assisted by the Red Cross after flooding in Mozambique

In March, Cyclone Idai struck Mozambique, causing widespread flooding. It also sparked an outbreak of cholera.

Climate Centre/Flickr (CC BY-NC 2.0)

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

Top Story

Climate change is making crops less productive, foods less nutritious and farms weedier

Cells

In a first, scientists keep cells alive in the brains of dead pigs

This technique might one day lead to better brain therapies for living people

a screen capture from the new "Aladdin" movie

Light & Radiation

Technically Fiction

Let’s turn a genie blue

Here’s how nature could explain the bright blue hue of the one in Aladdin

Could climate change worsen global conflict?

By stressing resources and prompting mass migrations, climate change could be a ‘threat multiplier’

a photo of a common pipistrelle flying at night

Bats in the attic prompt boys to create a better bat detector

They also developed a citizen science site to log bat calls

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Editor's Picks

A photo of Folsom Lake in California from October 2015. There is no water to be seen. A white pick-up truck is driving diagonally from the left to the right along a dry path.

MCMLXXXI/iStockphoto

Weather & Climate

Fingerprint of climate change shows up in some extreme weather

A photo of a student climate change strike in London on February 15. In the middle of the image is a student holding a sign that reads I'd be in school if the Earth was cool.

Thousands of students protested in support of climate change action in London, England, on February 15. A global strike is planned for March 15.

Socialist Appeal/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

Students strike to spur adults into climate action

This map shows the paths of hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean from 1851 through 2015, and in the eastern Pacific Ocean from 1949 through 2015.

NOAA

Analyze This!

Weather & Climate

Analyze This: Seasonal hurricane costs have been rising sharply

Trending

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

Body functions

How a year in space affected Scott Kelly's health

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

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

With climate change, people may have to depend on grains such as the sorghum (shown here) that are not now commonly found on our plates.

Leonid Eremeychuk/iStock/Getty Images Plus

Agriculture

Meteorites may be excavating lunar water

Molecules kicked up by incoming space rocks suggest water is buried in the moon’s soil

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

Blogs

Aladdin’s genie takes the shape of a giant blue man. But why is he blue in the first place?

Courtesy of Disney

Technically Fiction

Let’s turn a genie blue

This is a common pipistrelle, a bat native to Ireland — and to Dylan Bagnall’s attic.

Barracuda1983/Wikimedia Commons (CC-SA-3.0)

Bats in the attic prompt boys to create a better bat detector

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

Body & Brain

In a feat that has shaken up neuroscience, scientists used an artificial fluid to keep cells alive in the brains of pigs that had been slaughtered for pork.

ChristiLaLiberte/ E+/Getty Images

Cells

In a first, scientists keep cells alive in the brains of dead pigs

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

Body functions

How a year in space affected Scott Kelly's health

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

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

Space

Water molecules near the moon hint that our natural satellite has water under its soil.

NASA

Meteorites may be excavating lunar water

NASA

Body functions

How a year in space affected Scott Kelly's health

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

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

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

Here’s the first picture of 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

a blurry person sits with their head on their knees against a wall, a scale is in focus in the foreground

Science Education

Scientists Say

Scientists Say: Relapse

This is what happens when someone’s health gets worse, after it had been getting better

a computer simulated image showing Earth and the lines of its magnetic field

Brain

People may indeed have a sixth sense — for magnetism

Brain waves hint that humans might possess an ability similar to that seen in some other animals

a cape robin-chat feeding a red-chested cuckoo chick

Animals

When parenting goes cuckoo

Brood parasites trick another bird, fish or other animal into taking care of their young

a photo of two chess players shaking hands

Genetics

Shaking hands could transfer your DNA — leaving it on things you never touched

People can transfer DNA from others after they touch them, potentially complicating a crime scene, new data show

a white labrador dog wearing a red harness is trotting on a green lawn, its head is lowered as though sniffing the ground

Genetics

The smell of fear may make it hard for dogs to track some people

Trained dogs had trouble sniffing out people with a short form of one gene that turns on in people who are stressed

Latest Headlines

In a feat that has shaken up neuroscience, scientists used an artificial fluid to keep cells alive in the brains of pigs that had been slaughtered for pork.

ChristiLaLiberte/ E+/Getty Images

Cells

In a first, scientists keep cells alive in the brains of dead pigs

Aladdin’s genie takes the shape of a giant blue man. But why is he blue in the first place?

Courtesy of Disney

Technically Fiction

Light & Radiation

Let’s turn a genie blue

With climate change, people may have to depend on grains such as the sorghum (shown here) that are not now commonly found on our plates.

Leonid Eremeychuk/iStock/Getty Images Plus

Agriculture

cloverphoto/iStock/Getty Images plus