An influential doctor and advocate of adolescent gender treatments said she had not published a long-awaited study of puberty-blocking drugs because of the charged American political environment. The doctor, Johanna Olson-Kennedy, began the study in 2015 as part of a broader, multimillion-dollar federal project on transgender youth. She and colleagues …
Read More »Ancient Cities Unearthed in Mountains of Central Asia
Michael Frachetti was on an archaeological dig high in the mountains of southeastern Uzbekistan in 2015 when a forestry official approached him. “You know, I’ve seen some of those kinds of ceramics in my backyard,” the official said, referring to the artifacts emerging from the dirt. “Come see.” The casual …
Read More »A Feathered Murder Mystery at 10,000 Feet
In January 2023, scientists attached tracking devices to eight grey plovers on the coast of the Wadden Sea off the Netherlands. The hope was to learn more about the birds’ yearly migration to breeding grounds in the Arctic. And all was going well until late May, when one of the …
Read More »Brazilian Fossil Hints at Older Origin for All Dinosaurs
A dog-size reptile slipped through fern-choked forests 237 million years ago in what is today Paraíso do Sul, Brazil. The animal had the body of a greyhound, a long neck and tail, and a small, nipping beak. Running on four, upright legs, the reptile looked remarkably like an early dinosaur. …
Read More »Reinventing Concrete, the Ancient Roman Way
In June, the Italian Ministry of Culture announced the excavation of a new room, not yet open to the public, in the ruins of Pompeii. A few weeks later, a group of archaeologists gathered to marvel at it: walls covered with bright blue paint — an expensive pigment reserved for …
Read More »Orionids Meteor Shower: When and How to Watch Its Peak
Our universe might be chock-full of cosmic wonder, but you can observe only a fraction of astronomical phenomena with your naked eye. Meteor showers, natural fireworks that streak brightly across the night sky, are one of them. The latest observable meteor shower will be the Orionids, which have been active …
Read More »Parachutes Made of Mucus Change How Some Scientists See the Ocean
The ocean is filled with microscopic creatures that thrive in the sunshine. These bacteria and plankton periodically clump up with detritus, like waste produced by fish, and then drift softly downward, transforming into what scientists call marine snow. In the inky depths of the ocean that the sun can’t reach, …
Read More »These Tiny Worms Account for at Least 4 Nobel Prizes
When scientists win the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, they typically thank family and colleagues, maybe their universities or whoever funded their research. This year, as the molecular biologist Gary Ruvkun accepted the most prestigious award of his career, he spent a few minutes lauding his experimental subject: a …
Read More »Sperm Can’t Unlock an Egg Without This Ancient Molecular Key
They’re the original odd couple: One is massive, spherical and unmoving. The other is tiny, has a tail and never stops swimming. Yet the union of egg and sperm is critical for every sexually reproducing animal on Earth. Exactly how that union occurs has long been a mystery to scientists. …
Read More »How Early Humans Evolved to Eat Starch
As soon as you put starch in your mouth — whether in the form of a dumpling, a forkful of mashed potatoes or a saltine — you start breaking it down with an enzyme in your saliva. That enzyme, known as amylase, was critically important for the evolution of our …
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