Hidden Invaders

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

Tracing each illness back to the start of symptoms, Frankovich has managed to find clusters: groups of children from the same school or neighborhood who had all come down with the condition in the same month; individuals with a true, physical connection, like the family of three brothers Swedo had studied years before. In the course of her investigation, a host of alternate infections have emerged: not just strep, but bacterial mycoplasma, influenza, sinusitis, pneumonia and others. By 2015, Fra ...read more

That Word You Heard: Superhydrophobic

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

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

Movin' On Up

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

Armadillos are expanding their range northward. Armadillos roamed the Western Hemisphere during the Ice Age. But by the time naturalist John James Audubon first noted their presence in 1854, the mammals had just a tiny toehold north of the U.S.-Mexico border along Texas’ hot Rio Grande Valley, with a broader range across Mexico and countries farther south. Since then, armadillos have been ceaselessly marching north and east, with scientists citing climate change as a likely factor. Th ...read more

This Means War!

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

Sites of ancient conflicts reignite a debate over when members of our species first took up arms against each other. The skull, though weathered from millennia of brutal heat and scouring sands, is unmistakably human. Unmistakable, too, are the signs of a violent death: massive fractures from the blunt force of a weapon wielded by another human. The shattered cranium is one of several from a site in Kenya known as Nataruk, where, long ago, a band of hunter-gatherers met its end. Described i ...read more

Stars Explode in Earthly Skies

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

About twice each century, a star in our galaxy explodes in a supernova. Only a few of those explosions happen close enough to Earth to be visible with the naked eye. By comparing ancient observations with today’s spacecraft data on supernova remains, scientists hope to nail down when those stars exploded. Here’s a look at eight supernovas that caught earthlings’ attention throughout history. RCW 86 (A.D. 185): Chinese and possibly Roman astronomers recorded a strange new star i ...read more