Getting hit by lightning is not usually a good thing. But one tropical tree species seems to harness heaven’s wrath. Not only do the trees survive lightning strikes, but their height and voluminous crowns act as natural lightning rods, attracting strikes that damage foes and boost their competitive advantage in the dense jungle. The finding,…
As the Mars rover Perseverance crested the top of Witch Hazel Hill, its operators back on Earth expected amazing things. This area on the western rim of the Jezero crater, along an ancient river delta that Perseverance has been exploring since it landed in 2021, is thought to contain some of the oldest rocks on…
At 6 a.m. on March 25, Philip Huang, director of the Dallas County Health and Human Services department, got a devastating email. Millions of dollars in federal grants that the health agency had were suddenly gone. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services had just rescinded about $12 billion from thousands of state and…
Humankind will soon lose a great deal of vigilance over the ozone layer, which shields life on Earth from harmful solar radiation. The impending loss of NASA’s Aura and the Canadian Space Agency’s SCISAT satellites threatens scientists’ ability to closely monitor compounds that destroy ozone and alter stratospheric circulation. With no planned missions to replace…
For Gila monsters that live in the warming Mojave Desert, relocating to beat the heat may not be so simple. While climate change might create some better habitats, the lizards could be left behind in regions that become harder to tolerate, researchers report in the March Ecology and Evolution. Gila monsters (Heloderma suspectum) are icons…
People who receive the live-attenuated shingles vaccine may have a lower likelihood of being diagnosed with dementia compared with those who do not get the shot, researchers report April 2 in Nature. The findings stem from a Welsh vaccination program. The researchers explored how vaccination against shingles — an illness that develops when the virus causing…