2016-02-17 所属栏目:科学美国人

Chameleons have it easy. If they need to hide from a predator they just change their appearance, and disappear against whatever they happen to be standing on. Surrounded by leaves?

2016-02-17 所属栏目:科学美国人

Malaria infection begins when a mosquito injects the Plasmodium parasite into the blood. But getting sick is not a certain outcome. "The vast majority of people really only develop

2016-02-16 所属栏目:科学美国人

Extinction. When species go bye-bye forever, we usually blame things like climate change, volcanic eruption or asteroid impact. But for the giant flightless birds that once roamed

2016-02-16 所属栏目:科学美国人

“Less than 4 percent of countries are responsible for over half of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Glenn Althor, of the University of Queensland.

“This me

2016-02-15 所属栏目:科学美国人

It’s nearly game day and, if you’re a fan, you’ve already set aside your roomiest sweatpants and your own personal Family-size bag of Nacho Cheese Doritos. But if

2016-02-15 所属栏目:科学美国人

Does a bear produce feces in the woods? And do enterprising researchers then scoop that poop to analyze its microbial composition? You bet they do! And what they find is that the u

2016-02-05 所属栏目:科学美国人

The tree people in the Lord of the Rings—the Ents—can get around by walking. But for real trees, well, it's harder to uproot. "Because it's a sessile organism, litera

2016-02-04 所属栏目:科学美国人

As many as 12 million tons of plastic waste end up in the world's oceans every year, according to a 2015 estimate in the journal Science. Over time, wind and waves grind and chew

2016-02-04 所属栏目:科学美国人

When patients show up in a hospital with a respiratory illness, they’re usually given an antibiotic, which do not work against viral infections. Even though most of these res

2016-02-03 所属栏目:科学美国人

Are you gobbling up antioxidants as part of your diet and nutrition regimen? The benefits may be, well…

“It seems surprising, but even after several decades we don&rs

2016-02-02 所属栏目:科学美国人

That, of course, is the sound of the Himalayan forest thrush. And that sound was a clue to field researchers that they might have a new species of bird on their hands. Even though

2016-02-01 所属栏目:科学美国人

“One of the things we know for sure in the United States is that a gun in the home increases the likelihood that someone in the home will die a violent death—from gun a

2016-01-29 所属栏目:科学美国人

The ability to distinguish between sounds of varying pitch makes people capable of producing and understanding speech and music. And the way we are able to process pitch has been t

2016-01-28 所属栏目:科学美国人

When patients show up in a hospital with a respiratory illness, they’re usually given an antibiotic, which do not work against viral infections. Even though most of these res

2016-01-27 所属栏目:科学美国人

“All those people who are mad that Pluto is no longer a planet can be thrilled to know that there’s a real planet out there still to be found.” Caltech planetary

2016-01-26 所属栏目:科学美国人

Some sea creatures can find their way through thousands of miles of seemingly featureless oceans. Even more impressive is the route that they take. “Well, we’ve known

2016-01-22 所属栏目:科学美国人

Sixty-five million years ago, a six-mile-wide asteroid crashed into what’s now Mexico. The impact upended Earth’s climate, driving up to three quarters of all species e

2016-01-21 所属栏目:科学美国人

Let’s say your diet has been not so great. Maybe too much red meat, especially processed meat. Maybe too many sugary soft drinks. And maybe you’ve been eating like that

2016-01-20 所属栏目:科学美国人

In recent years scientists have shown that the microbes that live in our guts play crucial roles in our lives. They’re involved in digestion, obesity, even mood. And a few ca

2016-01-19 所属栏目:科学美国人

Chimpanzees. They’re notoriously social creatures. They snack together, snooze together and work hard to keep each other flea- and tick-free. But this simian intimacy does mo

2016-01-18 所属栏目:科学美国人

The word Siberia is almost a synonym for extreme cold. It’s hard enough to imagine living there today, but humans have been wandering the icy terrain for thousands of years.

2016-01-15 所属栏目:科学美国人

Animals that live in the city are usually less wary of humans than their rural counterparts. Most people think the boldness comes from experience: since the majority of humans are

2016-01-14 所属栏目:科学美国人

Hippopotamuses. People usually think of them as massive, lumbering hulks of plant-eating muscle. Reports do crop up of hippos snacking on crocs or chowing down on a drowned wildebe

2016-01-13 所属栏目:科学美国人

“There’s a story in the book, a story about people who took advantage of the law of inevitability to win the lottery.” That’s mathematician David Hand, talk

2016-01-12 所属栏目:科学美国人

Otzi—or as he’s also known, the Iceman—was discovered frozen in the Alps in 1991 by two German tourists. The 5,300-year-old body has been analyzed in various ways