Best Citation Awards

While growing up in California in the 1980s, Winifred Frick never saw a condor in the wild. The population of North America’s largest bird, Gymnogyps californianus , had dwindled to nearly zero by 1987 because so many were shot, poisoned or captured.  The few remaining wild condors were brought into zoos in the early 1980s as part of a captive breeding program aimed at restoring the condor population ( SN: 4/25/87 ). A small group of the birds reproduced, and eventually many of the condors were released back into the wild ( SN: 1/25/92 ). Today, Frick — now a conservation biologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz — and her 14-year-old son can admire soaring condors while hiking along the Pacific coast. Nearly 350 of these majestic scavengers, whose wings can span nearly 3 meters, once again fly over parts of California and Arizona. The condors’ happy ending is thanks in large part to the U.S. Endangered Species Act, or ESA, enacted on December 28, 1973. The act cur...

Science News drew over 21 million visitors to our website this year. Here’s a look back at the most-read and most-watched stories of 2023. Top news stories 1. Fungi that cause serious lung infections are now found throughout the U.S. An analysis of Medicare records from 2007 through 2016 reveals that Histoplasma , Coccidioides and Blastomyces fungi have become more widespread in the United States . The fungi, which cause serious lung infections, were once thought to be confined to certain regions of the country ( SN: 1/14/23, p. 32 ). 2 . A new look at Ötzi the Iceman’s DNA reveals new ancestry and other surprises Ötzi the Iceman’s ancestors may have been Neolithic farmers , a new genetic analysis indicates. Previous studies suggested that the roughly 5,300-year-old frozen mummy had ancestors from the Pontic-Caspian steppe. Ötzi also had male-pattern baldness and darker skin than previously thought ( SN: 9/23/23, p. 5 ). 3 . Mathematicians have finally discovered an elusive ‘e...

To the moon, asteroids and beyond, robotic explorers racked up the mileage in 2023. Here’s the latest status of space missions that made headlines this year. Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer April 14: The European Space Agency launched the Juice mission . Update: There’s not much progress to report yet; it will take about eight years for the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, or Juice, to reach its destination. But once there, the spacecraft will fly by the Jovian moons Callisto, Europe and Ganymede numerous times before settling into orbit around Ganymede. Closely scrutinizing these moons will help verify whether they host liquid oceans beneath their icy outer shells and gauge whether these underground seas could host life.  Euclid space telescope July 1: The ESA launched the Euclid space telescope. Update: Euclid’s aim is to create a 3-D map of the universe to help astronomers better understand dark matter, the mysterious substance that accounts for most matter in the universe, and...

Science occasionally gives us clearer views of the distant past. This year, researchers opened windows into the life and times of ancient Romans, impressionist painters and other towering historical figures. Huygens’ hazy telescopes Christiaan Huygens, the 17th-century Dutch astronomer best known for his studies of Saturn’s moons and rings, may have needed glasses. That would explain why the telescopes he designed weren’t as sharp as those of his peers, a researcher argues ( SN: 4/22/23, p. 5 ). A closer look at Huygens’ telescope lenses suggests the scientist was nearsighted. The lenses probably overmagnified his view of the cosmos, making distant objects appear clear to him but fuzzy to others. Vintage essence What did the ancient Romans smell like? Chemical analyses of a 2,000-year-old perfume bottle from an elite woman’s grave suggest a familiar earthy scent: patchouli ( SN: 7/1/23, p. 14 ). Patchouli oil permeates modern fragrances, but its use in ancient Rome had been unkno...

WASHINGTON — Tiny, sinking flakes of detritus in the ocean fall more slowly thanks to the goop that surrounds each flake, new observations reveal. The invisible mucus makes “comet tails” that surround each flake, physicist Rahul Chajwa of Stanford University reported November 19 at the American Physical Society’s Division of Fluid Dynamics meeting. Those mucus tails slow the speed at which the flakes fall. That could affect the rate at which carbon gets sequestered deep in the oceans, making the physics of this sticky goo important for understanding Earth’s climate. Although scientists knew the goo was a component of the “marine snow” that falls in the ocean, they hadn’t previously measured its impact on sinking speed. Marine snow is made of dead and living phytoplankton, decaying organic matter, feces, bacteria and other aquatic sundries, all wrapped up in mucus that’s produced by the organisms. Like the gunk known for clogging airways during respiratory virus season, the mucus is...

Science experienced many first-of-a-kind feats this year. These are the groundbreaking achievements that grabbed our attention. Cosmic web shake-up Glowing threads of gas, galaxies and dark matter provided the first tangible evidence that shock waves permeate the cosmic web , the large-scale structure of the universe ( SN: 3/25/23, p. 14 ). Simulations had predicted that colliding threads generate shock waves, which catapult charged particles into the web’s magnetic fields and create a faint glow. That aura appeared in data from radio telescopes, confirming the shock waves exist. The glow also provides the first (if indirect) peek at the cosmic web’s magnetic fields. Hats off After more than 50 years of searching, mathematicians finally found an einstein tile ( ein Stein is German for “one stone”). The shape, dubbed “the hat,” fits with its mirror image to create an infinite pattern that never repeats ( SN: 4/22/23, p. 7 ). Soon after, researchers discovered a “vampire” einstein ...

SAN FRANCISCO — Several Antarctic glaciers are undergoing dramatic acceleration and ice loss. Hektoria Glacier, the worst affected, has quadrupled its sliding speed and lost 25 kilometers of ice off its front in just 16 months, scientists say. The rapid retreat “is really unheard of,” says Mathieu Morlighem, a glaciologist at Dartmouth College who was not part of the team reporting these findings. The collapse was triggered by unusually warm ocean temperatures, which caused sea ice to retreat. This allowed a series of large waves to hit a section of coastline that is normally shielded from them. “What we’re seeing here is an indication of what could happen elsewhere” in Antarctica, says Naomi Ochwat, a glaciologist at the University of Colorado Boulder who presented the findings December 11 at the American Geophysical Union meeting. Hektoria Glacier, Green Glacier, and Crane Glacier sit near the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, which reaches up toward South America. The crescent moo...

From ancient cannibalism to stars made of dark matter, 2023 delivered several scientific claims that could shake up their fields — if they shape up to be true. Spark of life Early life on Earth may have gotten a boost from giant volcanic eruptions. A new look at debris from 10 eruptions millions of years ago suggests they contained a lot of nitrate that formed in the atmosphere ( SN: 6/3/23, p. 7 ). The eruptions could have triggered fierce lightning that ripped apart molecular nitrogen, freeing nitrogen atoms to bond with other elements and form molecules useful to life — including nitrate. The same process may have happened billions of years ago, some scientists say, producing ingredients for early life. Scientists will need to account for the different chemical makeup of primordial Earth’s atmosphere to bolster that claim. Butchered bone Purported tool marks on a 1.45-million-year-old fossilized leg offer the oldest evidence of cannibalism among humans’ ancient relatives , rese...

Weight-loss drugs stole much of the spotlight in 2023, but these medical advances treating other conditions are also worthy of attention ( SN: 12/13/23 ). Green light for CRISPR gene editing On December 8, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the world’s first CRISPR/Cas9 gene-editing therapy ( SN: 12/8/23 ). The treatment, called Casgevy, targets sickle cell disease by helping patients produce healthy hemoglobin. In people with the disease, hemoglobin is abnormal, causing red blood cells to become hard and crescent shaped, which can block blood flow. By March 2024, the FDA will decide whether the same therapy can be used to treat beta-thalassemia, a disorder that reduces hemoglobin production. Slowing down Alzheimer’s The Alzheimer’s drug lecanemab (brand name Leqembi) won full FDA approval in July. Like the drug aducanumab approved in 2021, lecanemab removes the amyloid plaques that build up in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s. The drug doesn’t stop the disease, ...

The biography of our home galaxy may be due for some revisions. That’s because a bar-shaped collection of stars at the center of the Milky Way appears to be much younger than expected. The bar is a prominent feature of our galaxy ( SN: 6/25/21 ). It spans thousands of light-years and links the galaxy’s spiraling arms of stars, making them resemble streams of water coming from a spinning lawn sprinkler. In computer simulations of the Milky Way’s evolution, the bar tends to form early in the galaxy’s roughly 13-billion-year lifetime. But the ages and locations of metal-rich stars suggest the bar finished forming just a few billion years ago , researchers report. The study, submitted November 28 to arXiv.org, is in press at Astronomy & Astrophysics Letters . “These metal-rich stars are basically like fossil records of ancient stars that are telling the story of our home galaxy,” says Samir Nepal, an astrophysicist at the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam in Germany. Stars...