Science News Explores

Some deadly amoebas may be primed to invade your brain.

Naegleria fowleri (Neg-LAIR-ee-ah FOW-ler-eye) is sometimes called the brain-eating amoeba. Normally, it lives in ponds, where it dines on bacteria. But the way it seeks out meals might al...

When the weather turns cold and days get short, Annemarie O’Connell heads to the beach. Late on a December afternoon in 2025, she bundled up and drove to the shore in Truro, Mass. It’s near the tip of Cape Cod, a peninsula that sticks out into the Atlantic Ocean.

It was dark and chilly as O’Connell scanned the beach with a flashlight. She was looking for stranded se...

Playing some video games can be healthy, a new study finds — if they are designed to support mental well-being.

Consider this scenario in PlaySmart. “Taylor was one of my best friends. We drifted away and it feels like it was my fault.”

As you play this game as Taylor’s friend, you see what pushed her away. Then you try making different choices. Along the ...

Linden Hunter-Pinsky, 14, lives by the ocean in Santa Cruz, Calif. There, he sees kelp beds off the coast on his way to school. California’s kelp severely declined in the 2010s due to a heat wave and other factors, Linden recently learned. But some of them near Santa Cruz have begun to bounce back. That made him wonder: Was that because the recovering beds had fewer sea urchi...

Four fossilized footprints are helping scientists step into a dinosaur’s shoes. The prints form the first known set of tracks likely left by an adult Tyrannosaurus rex.

A trackway is three or more consecutive footprints left by some animal. The one for th...