Science News for Students | News and feature articles from all fields of science
an illustration of two AI systems playing a game against each other
Top Story
AI can learn real-world skills by playing video games
StarCraft and Minecraft are good testing grounds for making artificial intelligence more humanlike
a composite image of a midge jumping
Animals
 
High-speed camera reveals the secrets of a legless larva’s leap
The body of a larval gall midge acts like a spring
a picture of a baby mannequin wearing a premie vest
Health
 
Tiny vest could help sick babies breathe easier
It works by gently pulling on the baby’s belly to draw air into the lungs
an illustration of DNA being cut with scissors
Genetics
 
CRISPR enters its first human trials
The gene-editing technology will target cancer, blood disorders and blindness
a yellow octocoral
Algae & Fungi
 
Scientists Say
Scientists Say: Zooxanthellae
These microorganisms, a group of algae, live in the tissue of coral

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Editor's Picks
an illustration of an asteroid impacting the Earth

A massive asteroid hit the Earth 66 million years ago. The explosive collision rattled the planet and changed its climate. The devastating changes it triggered abruptly wiped out the dinosaurs — and most other living species.

solarseven/iStock/Getty Images Plus

Earth
Reliving the last day of the dinosaurs
a satellite image of hurricane Dorian leaving the Bahamas

Hurricane Dorian shown on September 3 as it was leaving the Bahamas as a category 2 storm. It was a powerful category 5 when it first slammed into the island nation September 1.

NOAA/NESDIS/STAR

Weather & Climate
Slow hurricanes, like Dorian, become dangerous and hard to predict
image of sleepy girl before school
Health
Early school starts can turn teens into ‘zombies’
Trending
a close-up of a woman vaping

Vaping is the single apparent common denominator among 450 cases of severe lung injury. It showed up mostly in teens and young adults across the United States.

sestovic/iStock/Getty Images Plus

Toxicology
Outbreak of lung disease, including 5 deaths, tied to e-cigarettes
an illustration of two AI systems playing a game against each other

Artificial intelligence systems that play video games can pick up all kinds of real-world skills.

ryccio/Getty Images Plus; adapted by L. Steenblik Hwang

Computers & Electronics
AI can learn real-world skills by playing video games
a satellite image of hurricane Dorian leaving the Bahamas

Hurricane Dorian shown on September 3 as it was leaving the Bahamas as a category 2 storm. It was a powerful category 5 when it first slammed into the island nation September 1.

NOAA/NESDIS/STAR

Weather & Climate
Slow hurricanes, like Dorian, become dangerous and hard to predict
a satellite image of wildfires

 Wildfires near the Mackenzie River in Canada’s Northwest Territories. A European Space Agency satellite, called the Copernicus Sentinel-2, snapped this image on July 27.

Pierre Markuse/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

Weather & Climate
Record heat is burning the Arctic and melting Greenland’s ice
football players crashing into each other
Brain
 
Routine hits in a single football season may harm players’ brains
Collisions in practices and games may damage healthy brain tissue, even without concussions
an illustration of the earth as an ice cream scoop on an ice cream cone, melting in the sun
Weather & Climate
 
Catch up with Climate Change Chronicles
We spent a year documenting climate change around the globe
a satellite image of wildfires
Weather & Climate
 
Record heat is burning the Arctic and melting Greenland’s ice
Wildfires are pumping vast amounts of carbon dioxide into the air, which could make the problem worse
a close-up of a woman vaping
Toxicology
 
Outbreak of lung disease, including 5 deaths, tied to e-cigarettes
Government agencies can’t say whether everyone has same disease or just similar symptoms
an illustration of a new 18-atom carbon ring
Chemistry
 
Chemists have created a ring-shaped form of carbon
Called cyclocarbon, this molecule is the latest lab-made form of the universal element
Blogs
a yellow octocoral

Algae called zooxanthellae live in the tissue of some sea animals, including many corals. The algae give the coral its color and also some food in exchange for shelter.

NOAA Okeanos Explorer Program, INDEX-SATAL 2010/NOAA Photo Library/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

Scientists Say
Scientists Say: Zooxanthellae
an image of the Andromeda galaxy

This is a colorized image of the galaxy Andromeda. Andromeda is a spiral galaxy that neighbors the Earth’s home galaxy, the Milky Way. 

JPL-Caltech/NASA

Scientists Say
Scientists Say: Galaxy
a photo of "Lonesome George" a Pinta Island tortoise that died in 2012

This Pinta Island tortoise, named “Lonesome George,” was the last of his subspecies in the Galapagos Islands. He died in 2012, and the Pinta Island tortoise was declared extinct.

Arturo de Frias Marques/Wikimedia Commons (CC SA-3.0)

Scientists Say
Scientists Say: Extinction
an illustration of a pH scale with acidic and basic examples

This is a pH scale showing popular items that are acidic (lemons and tomatoes) or basic (soap or bleach).

ttsz/iStock/Getty Images Plus

Scientists Say
Scientists Say: pH
Body & Brain
a picture of a baby mannequin wearing a premie vest

A baby mannequin wears an invention designed to help sick babies breathe. Called NeoVest, it does away with the traditional mask and breathing tubes that get in the way of a baby feeding and bonding with its parents.  

St. Michael’s Hospital

Health
Tiny vest could help sick babies breathe easier
an illustration of DNA being cut with scissors

Scientists are beginning human trials to treat disease with the “molecular scissors” known as CRISPR/Cas9. Some people with a form of inherited blindness will have it injected into their eyes, where researchers hope it will snip out a mutation.

TRAFFIC_ANALYZER/GETTY IMAGES PLUS

Genetics
CRISPR enters its first human trials
football players crashing into each other

Over a season of college football, head hits that were too small to cause concussions were still linked to adverse changes in the brain stems of players.

skynesher/E+/Getty Images Plus

Brain
Routine hits in a single football season may harm players’ brains
a close-up of a woman vaping

Vaping is the single apparent common denominator among 450 cases of severe lung injury. It showed up mostly in teens and young adults across the United States.

sestovic/iStock/Getty Images Plus

Toxicology
Outbreak of lung disease, including 5 deaths, tied to e-cigarettes
an image of the Andromeda galaxy
Space
 
Scientists Say
Scientists Say: Galaxy
These stellar groups can contain millions to billions of stars
temperature map of a heat wave that hit Europe July 2019
Weather & Climate
 
Today’s global warming is unlike the last 2,000 years of climate shifts
Previous cooldowns and warm-ups were regional and driven by natural forces
a photo of Lisa Grossman in a bunny suit at NASA's Johnson Space Center
Planets
 
Welcome to moon rock central
These Apollo samples are more precious than gold
a satellite image of hurricane Dorian leaving the Bahamas
Weather & Climate
 
Slow hurricanes, like Dorian, become dangerous and hard to predict
Monster storms that stall, as Dorian did, pose special threats
a WHO health worker screening people for Ebola
Science & Society
 
Eight stories you missed while on summer vacation
Catch up on the science you may not have had a chance to read
Space
a photo of Lisa Grossman in a bunny suit at NASA's Johnson Space Center

Science News astronomy reporter Lisa Grossman visits the pristine-sample lab at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. The display case holds rocks collected by the Apollo 15 and 16 missions. The 1.5-kilogram (3.3-pound) chunk of volcanic basalt in the center is 3.4 billion years old.

Felix Sanchez

Planets
Welcome to moon rock central
an illustration of how a terrascope would be created

The bending of starlight caused by Earth’s atmosphere could be used to create a giant telescope, one scientist suggests. It would require placing a detector out in space (illustrated).

James Tuttle Keane

Astronomy
This idea would turn the Earth into a giant space telescope
a map of the Milky Way showing the warped curvature of the galaxy

This new map of the Milky Way reveals the warped shape of the galaxy. The map was made with stars called Cepheids. In this image, the Cepheid stars (green) are overlaid on top of an image of another warped galaxy. That galaxy is NGC 4565. The star icon indicates the sun.

J. Skowron/OGLE/Astronomical Observatory/Univ. of Warsaw

Astronomy
The Milky Way is shaped like a curvy potato chip
an illustration of a ploonet

There’s a new kind of space object out there. The “ploonet.” This is a moon that escaped the gravity of a gas giant. These ploonets might explain the existence of comets around distant stars, shown here in an artist’s illustration.

Lynnette Cook/Fuse/NASA

Planets
What do you call a moon that escapes its planet? A ‘ploonet’
Invention & Innovation
a picture of a baby mannequin wearing a premie vest

A baby mannequin wears an invention designed to help sick babies breathe. Called NeoVest, it does away with the traditional mask and breathing tubes that get in the way of a baby feeding and bonding with its parents.  

St. Michael’s Hospital

Health
Tiny vest could help sick babies breathe easier
an illustration of an astronaut planting a plant in space

Plants loaded up with metal-organic frameworks, or MOFs, may be key to growing crops in the harshest environments, including space.

gorodenkoff/iStock/Getty Images Plus

Materials Science
High-tech crops may survive harsh conditions, even space
three surgeons operating on an unseen person

To reshape living tissue, surgeons usually cut into cells and stitch the wound. This type of surgery creates scars. A new, painless approach would damage few cells and might take only a few minutes.

andrei_r/iStock/Getty Images Plus

Technology
A new electric surgery tool may someday fix nose, ear and eye problems
a photo of a discarded styrofoam cup on the ground surrounded by plants

Unlike this Styrofoam cup, made from plastic, a new kind of foam is biodegradable.

tomschirtz/iStock/Getty Images Plus

Materials Science
Trees may become the key to ‘greener’ foam products
an illustration of an astronaut planting a plant in space
Materials Science
 
High-tech crops may survive harsh conditions, even space
These resilient plants can use nanoparticles to build their own defences against radiation and more
a photo of a hard plastic water bottle and a woman tying her shoelaces on a running path
Toxicology
 
Study links chemicals in ‘BPA-free’ plastics to obesity in kids
Overweight kids host higher levels of BPS and BPF than do normal-weight kids
a photo of "Lonesome George" a Pinta Island tortoise that died in 2012
Science Education
 
Scientists Say
Scientists Say: Extinction
This is the permanent loss of a species
an illustration of Candida auris fungus
Health
 
Climate change may be aiding a deadly fungus in infecting humans
The number of cases of fungal infections has increased around the world
maze corals with lesions from a new coral disease
Animals
 
Mystery disease is killing Caribbean corals
Biologists race to learn what it is and maybe how to thwart it
Latest Headlines
a composite image of a midge jumping

Never mind the absence of legs. A young gall midge, no bigger than a rice grain, can go airborne thanks to some clever latching.

G.M. Farley et al/Journal of Experimental Biology 2019

Animals
High-speed camera reveals the secrets of a legless larva’s leap
a picture of a baby mannequin wearing a premie vest

A baby mannequin wears an invention designed to help sick babies breathe. Called NeoVest, it does away with the traditional mask and breathing tubes that get in the way of a baby feeding and bonding with its parents.  

St. Michael’s Hospital

Health
Tiny vest could help sick babies breathe easier
an illustration of DNA being cut with scissors

Scientists are beginning human trials to treat disease with the “molecular scissors” known as CRISPR/Cas9. Some people with a form of inherited blindness will have it injected into their eyes, where researchers hope it will snip out a mutation.

TRAFFIC_ANALYZER/GETTY IMAGES PLUS

Genetics
CRISPR enters its first human trials
a yellow octocoral

Algae called zooxanthellae live in the tissue of some sea animals, including many corals. The algae give the coral its color and also some food in exchange for shelter.

NOAA Okeanos Explorer Program, INDEX-SATAL 2010/NOAA Photo Library/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

Scientists Say
Algae & Fungi
Scientists Say: Zooxanthellae
Math & Technology
a picture of a baby mannequin wearing a premie vest

A baby mannequin wears an invention designed to help sick babies breathe. Called NeoVest, it does away with the traditional mask and breathing tubes that get in the way of a baby feeding and bonding with its parents.  

St. Michael’s Hospital

Health
Tiny vest could help sick babies breathe easier
an illustration of two AI systems playing a game against each other

Artificial intelligence systems that play video games can pick up all kinds of real-world skills.

ryccio/Getty Images Plus; adapted by L. Steenblik Hwang

Computers & Electronics
AI can learn real-world skills by playing video games
an illustration of a new 18-atom carbon ring

Chemists created a new form of carbon called cyclocarbon. The 18-atom ring is illustrated here using data from an atomic force microscope. Bonds between the atoms are alternately longer and shorter, giving the ring nine sides.

IBM Research

Chemistry
Chemists have created a ring-shaped form of carbon
an illustration of an astronaut planting a plant in space

Plants loaded up with metal-organic frameworks, or MOFs, may be key to growing crops in the harshest environments, including space.

gorodenkoff/iStock/Getty Images Plus

Materials Science
High-tech crops may survive harsh conditions, even space