Fire ant rafts form because of the Cheerios effect, study concludes
Fire ants will change shape of the raft to reduce drag and adapt to fluid flows.
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Science
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An Excavation in the Sea Depths Recovers Hercules From the Afterlife
An ancient shipwreck off the coast of Greece is yielding secrets as an archaeological exploration project dives deeper. The effort relies on technological innovation.
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Killer Asteroids Are Hiding in Plain Sight. A New Tool Helps Spot Them.
Researchers have built an algorithm that can scan old astronomical images for unnoticed space rocks, helping to detect objects that could one day imperil Earth.
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The Smaller Bombs That Could Turn Ukraine Into a Nuclear War Zone
Military experts say a new generation of nuclear weapons has raised the risk that Mr. Putin might introduce less destructive atomic arms into the battlefields in and around Ukraine.
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Big Tech Is Pouring Nearly $1 Billion Into Carbon Removal
Companies including Google and Facebook are pouring more than $900 million into a nascent technology that’s essential to zeroing out emissions.
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The world’s oldest pants are a 3,000-year-old engineering marvel
Strong in some places and flexible in others, the pants were designed for horseback riding.
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How America Watches for a Nuclear Strike
Hundreds of satellites and spacecraft are keeping an eye on Russia’s nuclear forces from above. So far, they haven’t seen much to worry about.
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Radian announces plans to build one of the holy grails of spaceflight
"We all understand how difficult this is."
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The last great mystery of the mind: meet the people who have unusual – or non-existent – inner voices
Does your internal monologue play out on a television, in an attic, as a bickering Italian couple – or is it entirely, blissfully silent?
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The Truth Behind the Amazon Mystery Seeds
Why did so many Americans receive strange packages they didn’t think they’d ordered?
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Did a Cuttlefish Write This?
Octopuses and squid are full of cephalopod character. But more scientists are making the case that cuttlefish hold the key to unlocking evolutionary secrets about intelligence.
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How Archaeologists Are Using Deep Learning to Dig Deeper - The New York Times
Trawling ancient history with neural nets.
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Who Is the Smartest Dog? Let the Competition Begin.
Scientists in Hungary are streaming experiments with dogs that know many words, featuring them in a contest of canine intelligence.
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Why is America running out of water?
Partner Content: Decreasing precipitation and rising populations could bring a perfect storm of water shortages for the United States. Where is our water going?
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The Search for Life on Venus Could Start With This Private Company
Rocket Lab may be able to send a small spacecraft to probe the clouds of Venus long before NASA or other space agencies are able to do so.
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How cats and dogs see the world
Dogs and cats don't see as clearly as humans—and they're lacking in the color department—but they can see movement much better than we can.
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How Ultra-Black Fish Disappear in the Deepest Seas
Researchers have found fish that absorb more than 99.9 percent of the light that hits their skin.
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The Thinnest Paper in the World
The process of making tengujo is fairly simple, but the nearly transparent product that results is almost magical.
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‘Zoom fatigue’ is taxing the brain. Here's why that happens.
Video calls seemed an elegant solution to remote work, but they wear on the psyche in complicated ways.
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Why ‘Tiger King’ Is Not ‘Blackfish’ for Big Cats
Critics say the popular Netflix series and its directors lost sight of the conservation and animal welfare problems at the heart of the story of Joe Exotic.
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They Wanted Research Funding, So They Entered the Lottery
A survey of New Zealand scientists found that recipients of a randomized funding program favored random allocations of some kinds of grant money.
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The More Gender Equality, the Fewer Women in STEM
A new study explores a strange paradox: In countries that empower women, they are less likely to choose math and science professions.
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The Navy's Patent for a Compact Nuclear Fusion Reactor Is Wild
The designs seemingly stretch the limits of science.
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These Ants Use Germ-Killers, and They’re Better Than Ours
Parasitic fungi do not seem to develop resistance to the chemicals, suggesting new ways to prevent antibiotic resistance.
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What makes dogs so special and successful? Love.
After searching for dogs' intelligence, a top canine scientist concluded that their true gift is affection.
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How Does Antarctica’s Only Native Insect Survive Extreme Cold?
The Antarctic midge spends more than half its life frozen. A better understanding of how it does so could have implications for human health.
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The Space Between Galaxies Isn’t Empty
Most of the atoms in the universe lie in its flyover country.
