The robot can take flying leaps and adjust its landing — just like squirrels do A one-legged robot can hop from one narrow pipe to another and land balanced, like a squirrel leaping between branches. Justin K. Yim Salto the robot is acting a little squirrelly. The jumping bot can take a flying leap and

Budgerigar’s language centers use a "vocal keyboard" that’s surprisingly humanlike Specific nerve cells in budgerigars’ brains allow the parrots to combine different elements of sounds, a new study shows. Christopher Auger-Dominguez When it comes to speech, parrots have the gift of gab. And the way the brains of small parrots known as budgerigars bestow this

This is the second study in six months to find planets around Barnard’s star Four small, probably rocky planets orbit Barnard’s star (illustrated). The planetary system is the nearest one to the sun centered on a single star. R. Proctor and J. Pollard/International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/AURA/NSF The nearest single star to the sun, Barnard’s star, has

A planned eight-day mission turned into months aboard the International Space Station The capsule carrying American astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams splashed down off the coast of Tallahassee, Fla., after the pair's longer-than-planned stay aboard the International Space Station. NASA After spending more than nine months orbiting Earth, two U.S. astronauts finally returned home

The clearest pictures yet of the newborn cosmos strengthen the prevailing model of the universe but deepen a mystery about its expansion rate. Measurements of this rate, known as the Hubble constant, have produced conflicting results. Cosmologists hoped that new data from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope in Chile, which examines the oldest light in the

Introducing new koalas to mate with would help reduce inbreeding, but could also bring in the disease Some koalas (Phascolarctos cinereus) living in the Sydney metro area are isolated from other koalas, keeping them chlamydia-free. But the cost is being worryingly inbred. Carolyn Hogg Some of Sydney’s koalas are facing an uncompromising dilemma. The koalas

Iguanas floated to Fiij from North America 30 million years ago The ancestors of Fiji’s iguanas, such as the Fijian crested iguana (Brachylophus vitiensis, shown here), may have arrived in the islands by floating across the Pacific Ocean on vegetation over 30 million years ago. Nicholas Hess Scaly sailors may have made a record-setting oceanic

In the sixth episode of The Deep End, we’ll look to the future for Jon and his family and for DBS research. The research is pushing ahead, with a clinical trial of DBS for treatment-resistant depression that’s just begun. The first volunteer for that study had DBS surgery in early February. You’ll also hear about

As measles cases surge in the United States, leading to the country’s first two measles-related deaths in a decade, questions, worries and misinformation about the infectious disease are swirling. More than 220 measles cases have been reported this year as of March 6, largely associated with an outbreak at the border between Texas and New

Children who spent time with the dogs reported a larger drop in anxiety than those who didn’t Time with a therapy dog can reduce kids’ anxiety while in the emergency department, a clinical trial reports. Isaac Lane Koval/Corbis/VCG/Getty Images Plus About 10 minutes with a therapy dog soothed kids who felt anxious about being emergency