One of the most widespread parasites on the planet can also be one of the most difficult to study. Toxoplasma gondii —a single-celled protozoan—is capable of infecting almost every mammal and bird species, including humans , and in severe cases causes blindness, birth defects, and death. Yet it only sexually...

When the immense Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico collapsed in 2020, it left gaping holes in astronomy . Now, a team from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) hopes to address some of the gaps with a very different instrument: a tightly packed array of relatively inexpensive radio dishes that aims to quickly image radio sources across wide swaths of the...

Jurassic Park may be about to get a makeover. A new study finds that Tyrannosaurus rex and its relatives did not look like crocodiles, with teeth jutting from their maws in all their full, razor-sharp glory. Instead, these dinosaurs covered their chompers with lips, more like today’s lizards. “This is a nice, concise answer to a question that has...

PARTICLE PHYSICS Particle mass dispels hint of new physics A fleeting, weighty elementary particle called the W boson has just the mass predicted by theory, physicists working with Europe’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) reported this week at a conference in Italy. The finding comes from ATLAS, one of four large particle detectors fed by the LHC,...

Around 500 C.E., a new government arose in the community now called Río Viejo, near the coast of the Mexican state of Oaxaca. It was once the largest city in the region, but it had shrunk by half and lost its political authority. The new rulers aimed to step into that power vacuum. But they had one problem: the ruins of a complex of ceremonial buildings built by Río Viejo’s last...

Sweeping new study based on archaeological evidence, chemical isotope analysis, and ancient DNA

In the face of intense pressure and criticism from many in the scientific community, Chinese researchers today released a trove of new genetic data that may offer fresh clues to the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic. They also substantially revised a related study they first posted online 13 months ago to include this evidence, which some scientists say gives more credibility to the thesis...

Rover by rover, NASA’s exploration of Mars is building to an expensive climax: a multibillion-dollar mission later this decade to collect the rock samples currently being gathered by the Perseverance rover and return them to Earth. But then what? NASA offered a partial answer to that question today. It envisions a series of lower cost Mars missions, costing up to...

Scientists have uncovered the brain circuits that may underlie binge eating disorder and related conditions. The neural wiring is the same as that tied to psychiatric conditions such as drug addiction and obsessive-compulsive disorder. The work could lead to new ways to understand and treat eating disorders, says Rebecca Boswell, a clinical psychologist at Princeton University...