Laurel Hamers

All Stories by Laurel Hamers

  1. Science & Society

    Watching meat rot helps decode what Neandertals ate

    One scientist has measured the chemical makeup of decaying meat. She’s comparing it against what’s in fossil bones to figure out what Neandertals ate.

  2. Science & Society

    Carbon dioxide emissions will hit a record high globally in 2018

    CO2 emissions from China, the United States and India all rose in 2018, a new report finds. This is despite urgent calls for nations to cut back on their releases of this greenhouse gas.

  3. Animals

    How wombats make their unique cube-shaped poop

    The elasticity of the wombat’s intestines helps the creature to shape its distinctive scat.

  4. Brain

    Zaps to spinal cord help paralyzed people walk

    Sending electrical pulses to the spinal cord can help paralyzed people learn to walk again, new tests show.

  5. Tech

    New ways to clean up polluted sources of drinking water

    Some 21 million people in the United States may get drinking water from sources that are polluted. Some new water treatments promise to greatly lower costs or tackle formerly hard-to-remove pollutants.

  6. Environment

    Six things that shouldn’t pollute your drinking water

    These are why drinking untreated water can be harmful. But keep in mind, today’s water-treatment plants still won’t remove all of these.

  7. Earth

    Explainer: How is water cleaned up for drinking

    Unless you’re drinking well water, city folks typically get drinking water that has been treated in a water-treatment plant. Here’s what that means.

  8. Chemistry

    Three take home chemistry Nobel for harnessing protein ‘evolution’

    New ways to create customized proteins for use in biofuels and medicines earned three researchers the 2018 Nobel Prize in chemistry.

  9. Climate

    Wilder wildfires? Computing helps predict their path and fury

    Math probes how wildfires feed on the air around them to erupt into devastating conflagrations.

  10. Animals

    Eating queen’s poop makes naked mole rats babysit her kids

    Hormones in the poop of a naked mole rat queen turns other females into babysitters for her young.

  11. Environment

    Wildfires worsen extreme air pollution in U.S. northwest

    America’s air is getting cleaner — except in places prone to frequent wildfires.

  12. Animals

    Electric currents in the air may cue ‘ballooning’ spiders on when to take off

    Some spider species float on the breeze using a parachute of silk. A new study suggests electrical charges in the air help spiders time these flights.