Weekly Headlines (Excerpts)

1. As men dominate Nobels again, one of their selectors still sees some slow progress toward greater diversity

A member of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry shares her perspective on how she and others are trying to expand the nomination pool for the famed awards

BY KATIE LANGIN 11 OCT 2024 

2. Missing immune cells may explain why COVID-19 vaccine protection quickly wanes

New insights on what stimulates long-lived antibody production could spur better vaccines

BY JON COHEN 11 OCT 2024 

3. Things get hairy inside the mouths of man-eating lions

Hairs extracted from broken teeth reveal the infamous cats preyed on more than just humans

BY PHIE JACOBS 11 OCT 2024 

4. ‘Alarming’ decline of seed-dispersing animals threatens Europe’s plants

First broad look at conservation status of animals that transport seeds raises alarms

BY ERIK STOKSTAD 10 OCT 2024 

5. Twenty years after its discovery, graphene is finally living up to the hype

Atom-thin sheets of carbon are finding applications not just in consumer electronics, but cars, concrete, and brain implants

BY MARK PEPLOW 10 OCT 2024 

6. El Niño fingered as likely culprit in record 2023 temperatures

Research suggests swings in Pacific Ocean can account for planet’s sudden and perplexing temperature jump

BY PAUL VOOSEN 10 OCT 2024 

7. Still reeling from Helene, scientists brace for another monster hurricane

As Milton hurtles toward Florida, researchers are rushing to collect data—and already looking ahead to the next disaster

BY PHIE JACOBS, CHRISTIE WILCOX 9 OCT 2024 

8. Gene therapy dilemma: Treatment that halts brain disease can also cause cancer

New findings cause quandary for parents of boys with deadly condition

BY JOCELYN KAISER 9 OCT 2024 

9. What causes the windless doldrums that strand sailors? Find upends previous thinking

Theory suggests sinking tropical air masses, not rising ones, lead to dead calms

BY HANNAH RICHTER 9 OCT 2024 

10. Ancient creature was a grizzly-size millipede-centipede hybrid, fossil head reveals

Finding reveals how different arthropod groups could be related to each other

BY RODRIGO PÉREZ ORTEGA 9 OCT 2024 

11. Protein designer and structure solvers win chemistry Nobel

Award honors AI approaches to predicting protein shapes and designing new ones for medicine

BY CATHERINE OFFORD 9 OCT 2024 

12. How the elephant got its wrinkles

Origin of the famed creases reveals how the trunk became the “most unbelievable grasping organ on the planet”

BY SARA REARDON 8 OCT 2024 

13. In a surprise, AI pioneers win physics Nobel

John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton honored for early work on artificial neural networks

BY ADRIAN CHO 8 OCT 2024 

14. This jelly is really two in one

Injured sea walnuts can join bodies and thrive again by merging some of their systems

BY ELIZABETH PENNISI 7 OCT 2024 

15. ‘Out of the blue’ discovery of RNAs that regulate genes wins Nobel

Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun honored for discovery of microRNAs in worms

BY CATHERINE OFFORD 7 OCT 2024