Making the world safer for butterflies can be as easy as doing a bit of nothing.Letting some part of a yard go unmown can boost the number of butterflies and moths sighted there, says ecologist Richard Fox. That long-grass patch
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Books about the pandemic. Books about the ancient past. Books about outer space. These were a few of Science News staff’s favorite reads. Rachel E. Gross W.W. Norton & Co. $30For centuries, scientists (mostly males) have ignored female biology, and
Meet the metric system’s newest prefixes: ronna-, quetta-, ronto- and quecto-.Adopted November 18 at the 27th General Conference on Weights and Measures in Versailles, France, ronna- and quetta- describe exceedingly large numbers while ronto- and quecto- describe the exceedingly small.
A Voice in the WildernessJoseph L. Graves Jr.Basic Books, $30It’s both good and bad that the first Black American to earn a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology is not a long-ago hidden figure but a contemporary scientist. On the upside, there’s
Sabrina ImblerLittle, Brown & Co., $27In How Far the Light Reaches, Sabrina Imbler shows us that the ocean, in all its mystery and dazzling glory, is queer — that is, the life that takes shape there challenges how we landlubbers
If you’ve noticed more lush medians and plant-covered roofs in cities, it’s not your imagination.Incorporating more natural elements in urban landscapes is a growing management solution for the planet’s increasing climate hazards (SN: 3/10/22). Rain gardens, green roofs and landscaped
Greta ThunbergPenguin Press, $30The best shot we have at minimizing the future impacts of climate change is to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Since the Industrial Revolution began, humankind has already raised the average global temperature by about
Erika NesvoldMIT Press, $27.95Astrophysicist Erika Nesvold once asked an executive of a company aiming to mine the moon how he planned to address risks that mining equipment might carry microbes from Earth and contaminate the moon (SN: 1/10/18). His response:
Kate ClancyPrinceton Univ., $27.95In a February golf tournament, after Tiger Woods hit his ball farther on the ninth tee than Justin Thomas, Woods handed Thomas a tampon. Get it? Thomas is weak! Haha.Contrast this with the viral videos of writhing
At the end of the 19th century, one of the hottest debates among anthropologists was whether human beings originated from a single ancestor or many (the answer: just one). Members of both camps, though, largely agreed that whatever their origins,
