Staph bacteria are bad at letting go Some microbes can be quite clingy. Staphylococcus aureus, a bacterial species responsible for staph infections, latches onto human skin with one of the strongest biological bonds ever recorded, researchers report in the Sept. 5 Science Advances. This powerful grasp is strengthened by the mineral calcium, preventing bacterial cells […]

Dangers of falling birth rates in the US have been ‘dramatically overstated,’ experts say Pronatalism — the belief that low birth rates are a problem that must be reversed — is having a moment in the U.S. As birth rates decline in the U.S. and throughout the world, voices from Silicon Valley to the White […]

Earthquakes Release Energy Mostly Through Heat, Not Ground Shaking September 24, 2025 2 min read Most of an Earthquake’s Energy Is Released as Heat, Not Shaking Up to 98 percent of the energy of an earthquake goes into flash heating rocks, not shaking the ground, new research shows. The finding could help yield better earthquake […]

Diagnostic dilemma: A man lost his vision in youth — and doctors used one of his teeth to restore it The patient: A 34-year-old man named Brent Chapman in British Columbia, Canada The medical history: When Chapman was 13 years old, he had a rare and serious autoimmune reaction after taking a normal dose of […]

Mary Roach’s New Book Replaceable You Explores Challenges in Replacing Body Parts Rachel Feltman: For Scientific American’s Science Quickly, I’m Rachel Feltman. Humans have been trying to replace ailing parts of our bodies for thousands of years, turning to prosthetic limbs, regrown noses, you name it. But creating something that works as well as our […]

We Can Stop Teen Suicide I have a patient named “Alex.” He is 15. He feels alone, down almost every day. He tells me he’s having trouble with schoolwork. He worries about his future. He struggles to make friends and keep the ones he has. He says it’s hard to get out of bed, to […]

Universities are — and must continue to be — a force for good The New Model Institute for Technology and Engineering (NMITE) in Hereford, UK, is challenging conventional models for higher education.Credit: Steven May/Alamy Universities have a long and storied history. Al-Qarawiyyin University in Fez, Morocco, which was founded in the ninth century, is often […]

No lectures, exams, essays: inside a twenty-first-century university Teamwork and hands-on learning underpins NMITE’s pedagogy ethos.Credit: NMITE Eight hundred years ago, a group of scholars walked out of the University of Oxford after a bitter and violent dispute with local townspeople. At a fork in the road, the scholars might have turned left and founded […]

It’s not wokeness — it’s human rights Early in her career, evolutionary ecologist Maydianne Andrade was frequently asked to participate in equity work. As a Black woman in academia, she was initially reluctant, sensing that her presence on such committees was just ticking a box. At conference sessions on women and people of colour in […]

Robotic system takes chemistry into hyperspace Nature, Published online: 24 September 2025; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-02821-2 Exploring multidimensional ‘landscapes’ of chemical reactions provides rich insights into how they work, and might even enable the discovery of new forms of reactivity. Source: www.nature.com Published on 2025-09-24 00:00:00 by William E. Robinson | Category: | Tags: