11. In 1868, Charles Darwin was the first to document a collection of physical and behavioral traits seen in domestic animals, particularly mammals, but not their wild relatives. 12. It wasn’t until 2014, however, that researchers offered a single explanation for the phenomenon of floppy ears, smaller teeth, tameness and other “domestication syndrome” traits: a mild deficit in neural crest cells.13 In vertebrate embryos, neural crest cells (NCCs) form along the dorsal side, or ...read more

The full text of this article is available to Discover Magazine subscribers only. Subscribe and get 10 issues packed with: The latest news, theories and developments in the world of science Compelling stories and breakthroughs in health, medicine and the mind Environmental issues and their relevance to daily life Cutting-edge technology and its impact on our future ...read more

It’s a no-brainer to harness renewable energy sources like solar and wind. But a recent study in PNAS suggested that wind (and other renewables) will fall short of slashing carbon emissions, because there just isn’t enough of it in the U.S. Based on data from a company owned by one of the study’s authors, this map’s white areas show where wind turbines would be most effective — but because wind isn’t available all the time, they’d only produce roughly 50 ...read more

The full text of this article is available to Discover Magazine subscribers only. Subscribe and get 10 issues packed with: The latest news, theories and developments in the world of science Compelling stories and breakthroughs in health, medicine and the mind Environmental issues and their relevance to daily life Cutting-edge technology and its impact on our future ...read more

Picture rows of translucent tanks in a dark room. Partially formed embryos float silently, bathed in amniotic fluid. That’s the science fiction portrayal of an artificial womb, where machines gestate our babies, stirring unsettling undertones of inhumanity. It’s birth without pregnancy. As The Matrix’s Neo might say: Whoa. While that’s still the stuff of fantasy, there have been serious attempts to create artificial wombs dating back to the 1960s. Most fell far short of t ...read more

The full text of this article is available to Discover Magazine subscribers only. Subscribe and get 10 issues packed with: The latest news, theories and developments in the world of science Compelling stories and breakthroughs in health, medicine and the mind Environmental issues and their relevance to daily life Cutting-edge technology and its impact on our future ...read more

How the decades-long conflict led to today's increasingly impotent antibiotics. When the World Health Organization issued a report last February highlighting the antibiotic-resistant pathogens that posed the gravest public health threats, it capped a disheartening year. A powerful variety of E. coli reached American shores, and a Nevada woman died of an infection untreatable by available antibiotics. While it’s not time to panic, the stakes are high. The U.S. sees about 2 million resi ...read more

How neural stem cells repair damage from strokes, spinal injuries and aging. Kris Boesen’s life changed in an instant. In March 2016, he was driving down a winding road in his Nissan 350Z in Maricopa, a tiny hamlet in California’s San Joaquin Valley. Suddenly, the car fishtailed on the wet street, hit a tree and ricocheted into a telephone pole, crushing the vehicle and knocking Boesen unconscious. When he woke up in the hospital two days later, Boesen was paralyzed from the nec ...read more

Connected devices make our lives easier — and more vulnerable. We need white hats more than ever. One winter morning in 2015, as he left for work from his home in Silver Spring, Md., Jonathan Margulies pushed the button on his remote to close his garage door. Nothing happened. He tried again. Nothing. The motor was shot. He ended up replacing it with a “smart” opener that not only lifted and lowered the door, but also connected to the internet. With a swipe on a smartphone ...read more