3D-printed model of a 500-year-old prosthetic hand hints at life of a Renaissance amputee

When historians and engineers work together, they can bring a version of the past back to life.

Peden Jones, Graduate Student in Mechanical Engineering, Auburn University • conversation
June 24, 2025 ~12 min

Mountain chickadee chatter: Scientists are decoding the songbird’s complex calls

Mountain chickadees follow systematic grammarlike rules to share important information, stringing together syllables like words in a sentence.

Sofia Marie Haley, Ph.D. Student in Cognitive Ecology, University of Nevada, Reno • conversation
May 27, 2025 ~12 min


Billions of cicadas are emerging, from Cape Cod to north Georgia – here’s how and why we map them

Two ecologists explain why a misleading map is worse than no map at all, and how they have worked for years to track the emergences of 13-year and 17-year cicadas.

John Cooley, Assistant Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Connecticut • conversation
May 22, 2025 ~9 min

Unprecedented cuts to the National Science Foundation endanger research that improves economic growth, national security and your life

The Trump administrations has canceled more than 1,400 federal grants that support engineering, biology, geology, computer science, STEM education and much more.

Paul Bierman, Professor of Natural Resources and Environmental Science, University of Vermont • conversation
May 15, 2025 ~10 min

Young bats learn to be discriminating when listening for their next meal

By listening to a frog call, adult bats can tell which prey are palatable and which are poisonous. Young bats must acquire this ability over time.

Ximena Bernal, Professor of Biological Sciences, Purdue University • conversation
April 29, 2025 ~8 min

Granular systems, such as sandpiles or rockslides, are all around you − new research will help scientists describe how they work

It’s extremely difficult to see how forces in a pile of sand are distributed between individual grains – a new experimental approach fixes that.

Jacqueline Reber, Associate Professor of Earth, Atmosphere, and Climate, Iowa State University • conversation
April 28, 2025 ~8 min

Amid a tropical paradise known as ‘Lizard Island,’ researchers are cracking open evolution’s black box – scientist at work

A decade of fieldwork is revealing how one of biology’s fundamental principles works in real time.

James T. Stroud, Assistant Professor of Ecology and Evolution, Georgia Institute of Technology • conversation
March 25, 2025 ~11 min

DEI initiatives removed from federal agencies that fund science, but scientific research continues

Trump’s DEI-related executive orders may affect early career scientists and researchers who study representation in science, but most research grants are unaffected.

Filomena Nunes, Professor of Physics, Michigan State University • conversation
March 10, 2025 ~9 min


The female explorers who braved the wilderness but were overlooked by the history books

Women’s presence in ‘the wild’ has always been contested, in myth, storytelling and sexist attitudes in the media that persist to this day.

Sarah Lonsdale, Senior Lecturer in Journalism, City St George's, University of London • conversation
March 3, 2025 ~8 min

Do aliens exist? We studied what scientists really think

Only 10.2% of astrobiologists disagree with the claim that intelligent aliens likely exist.

Sean McMahon, Reader in Astrobiology, University of Edinburgh • conversation
Jan. 14, 2025 ~8 min

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