An old oyster bed now lying exposed on a beach in South Carolina. The oysters are no longer alive, but many shells remain in their original position.

Shucking the Past: Can Oysters Thrive Again?

Dredging and pollution devastated the once-bountiful reefs. Careful science may help bring them back.
An image of magnetic loops on the sun, captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory on July 18, 2012.

“Space Tornadoes” Could Cause Geomagnetic Storms

But these phenomena, spun off ejections from the Sun, aren’t easy to study.
The leg of this purple ochre sea star in Oregon is disintegrating, as it dies from sea star wasting syndrome. Photo by Elizabeth Cerny-Chipman, courtesy of Oregon State University.

The Long Quest to Uncover a Sea Star Killing Bacteria

Scientists say they’ve found the cause of a marine epidemic more than ten years after it started. What took so long?
Western meadowlark singing on a fence post at sunrise in Fort Niobrara National Wildlife Refuge near Valentine, Nebraska.

Birding by Ear

How to learn the songs of nature’s symphony with some simple techniques.
Image Updown Girl left and Worth Matravers boy Right.

Two Seventh-Century People Found With West African Ancestry

A story of diversity and integration in early Anglo-Saxon society.
Eruption of Eyjafjallajökull, Iceland

A Massive Eruption 74,000 Years Ago Affected the Whole Planet

Archaeologists use volcanic glass to figure out how people survived.
Thomas Robert Malthus by John Linnell

Misunderstood Malthus

The English thinker whose name is synonymous with doom and gloom has lessons for today.
Three species of pollen grains

Using Pollen To Make Paper, Sponges, and More

Reengineered, the powdery stuff could become a range of eco-friendly objects.
Two black holes merge into one

Lite Intermediate Black Holes

Meet the supermassive black hole’s smaller, much more mysterious cousin.
At center, the cytoskeleton’s actin fibers in mouse connective tissue cells are seen in yellow; cellular DNA is stained blue

Super-Resolution Microscopes Showcase the Inner Lives of Cells

Advanced light microscopy techniques have come into their own—and are giving scientists a new understanding of human biology and what goes wrong in disease.