Science & Health

A doctor performs an ultrasound at a hospital in Chicago, August 7, 2018.

Home Birth Is No More Dangerous Than Hospital Deliveries, Study Shows

Newborns’ mortality and morbidity are the same for low-risk pregnancies according research based on 14 studies charting some 1 million women

Life Really Can Overcome Anything: How Bacteria Survive 250 Meters Under the Dead Sea

Scientists discovered new life in one of the most extreme environments in the world: Bacteria living on dead ancient microorganisms – which may have implications for finding life on Mars

Animals Can Be Engineered to Have Only Girls. That Won’t Help Crazy Dictators

Prof. Udi Qimron and his Tel Aviv University team mutate mice to have single-sex offspring; female or male. He explains why despots couldn’t use the technique to create an army

Pygmy marmosets: The newly discovered fossil monkey may have been around this size.

Fossil Micro-monkey the Size of a Hamster Discovered in Amazon Rain Forest

Peewee primate, classified by one single tooth the size of two pinheads, doesn’t seem to have been a gummivore like today’s South American micro-monkeys

The Chutzpah That Made Dr. Ruth the Real Wonder Woman

Legendary sex therapist Ruth Westheimer tells Haaretz – in Hebrew – about the limits of the #MeToo movement, Judaism's contribution to sex theory, and the documentary about her that's now hitting Israel

Jules Bergman, the Jewish reporter who covered all of NASA’s manned space missions during his lifetime.

The Jewish Reporter Who Brought the 1969 Moon Landing Into America’s Living Rooms

Jules Bergman was the first network correspondent assigned to cover space full time, making him 'almost as much of a celebrity as the astronauts he covered'

We Sleep Like the Fishes and Have Done for 450 Million Years

Zebrafish turn out to have the same deep sleep and dream patterns as reptiles — and ourselves

Dentist attends to a patient at his clinic in Managua, Nicaragua, March 27, 2019.

Tel Aviv Scientists Could Make Root Canals History

New nano-filling prevents the secondary tooth decay that takes place beneath cavities; could reach trial stage in a year or two

An artist’s rendering of Oumuamua. “It waited in place, like a buoy in the ocean, until the ‘ship’ of the solar system ran into it.”

Mystery Object That Entered Our Solar System Isn't an Alien, Scientists Say

International team of researchers still uncertain how to classify the cigar-shaped object called Oumuamua that was spotted in 2017

Jotus karllagerfeldi and Karl Lagerfeld.

There's a Spider on the Catwalk: New Arachnid Species Named for Fashion Icon Karl Lagerfeld

The frisky arachnid and deceased designer shared a subdued color scheme in black and white, the scientists explain

Image made available by NASA in 2015 shows dark streaks on Mars inferred to have been formed by contemporary flowing water.

Mars-quakes May Be Caused by Auto-fracking, Scientists Suggest

ISS meanwhile comes clean about mold problem, inadvertently resurrecting the eternal question: Is there life on Mars? Maybe, but maybe we put it there

FILE Photo: A chimpanzee eats its lunch using a spoon at Villa Lorena animal refugee center in Cali, Colombia.

What Made Human Beings the Fat Ape

We may bemoan the human predisposition toward pudginess, but it may also be the key to our specialness

Sushi and Sashimi Lovers, That Tingling on Your Tongue Might Be Bad for You

A very special feeling in your mouth: Since when has risking tapeworm infection been irresistibly alluring?

A space probe falls towards the surface of Titan in this artist's conception of one of Saturn's moons. Space scientists hope that in the upcoming generations probes can be sent to explore the oceans of the large, icy satellites orbiting the outer planets.

Sperm in Space: Unlike Astronauts, It Can Survive if Frozen

Freezing can preserve sperm’s effectiveness even after 15 years, says separate Chinese study - but if Dad smoked, Junior may have fertility issues

Ernietta the gregarious Ediacaran: Suppertime on the seafloor 550 million years ago

Scientists Reconstruct Dinner Party From 550 Million Years Ago

Ernietta the gregarious Ediacaran: How exactly did these early animals eat? Together, scientists discover using fossils and computational fluid dynamics

The bush tomato, first noticed in the Australian Outback in the 1970s.

Bush Tomato Classified as World’s First Gender-fluid Plant

After decades of perplexity over its nonbinary flowering forms, botanists finally figure out what the Solanum plastisexum of Australia’s Outback really is

LOOK INTO MY EYES: “Domestication transformed the facial muscle anatomy of dogs specifically for facial communication with humans,” says a new study.

Study Reveals How Dogs Hijacked Our Hearts and Wallets

Dogs were first domesticated by European hunter-gatherers, resulting in the only animal that looks you straight in the eye, wiggles its eyebrows and asks for help

aerial photo taken on June 10, 2019 shows a 68-metre long image of a whale formed by plastic waste collected from the ocean during an event to raise awareness on ocean conservation at Rudong Yangkou Harbour in Nantong in China's eastern Jiangsu province.

You’re Eating a Hamburger’s Worth of Plastic Every Year

Bottled water is a huge source of plastic particle consumption, says Australian study, but at least the halakhically observant are spared the scourge of plasticized shellfish guts

Nematode tree of life, small RNA made in nerve cells passing information between generations

Worms Help Israeli Scientists Rewrite Basics of Genetics

Tel Aviv study finds Grail of genetics: Proves nerve cells can transmit messages to future generations not via the DNA, but by epigenetic changes

The Owens Valley Radio Observatory, owned by Caltech, near Bishop, California. Looking out toward the universe’s 10 sextillion stars.

NASA Renews Search for Aliens, and Discoveries Are Expected in Our Lifetime

New scientific discoveries, cutting-edge technology, multidisciplinary approaches to research – after years of neglect, the search for extraterrestrial life may soon take center stage in America's space program

A woman kissing her collie during the Crufts Dog Show in Birmingham, England, March 8, 2019.

Your Dog Feels Your Pain — Especially if It’s a Bitch

If you’re chronically under stress, your dog is likely to be too, according to a small but perfectly informed Swedish study

Artist's impression of the ginger pterosaur

Pterosaur Was Fuzzy: Feathers Evolved Not Only Before Birds but Before Dinosaurs Too

Never mind the chicken and the egg, discovery of plumed pterosaur shows feathers developed more than 250 million years ago

Chimps combing streambed and turning over rocks for crabs

WATCH: Chimpanzees Catch Crabs

Researchers observe chimps crab-fishing in West African rainforest, with females and offspring fishing for longer periods than adult males

A fruit bat at the TAU zoological colony

Why Do Male Bats Let Females Steal Fruit Right From Their Mouths? For Sex

Females trade sex for fruit but don't think of it as batty prostitution: they eat from particular males with whom they will have pups, Tel Aviv University researchers say

The ancestor of this mushroom lived over a billion years ago

Billion-year-old ‘Earliest Fungus Among Us’ Only Deepens Mystery of Life

Primordial fungoid found in fossilized river mud in arctic Canada can’t have been the ancestral fungus, it’s too sophisticated, researcher tells Haaretz

The Chinese Chang'e-4 lunar probe, taken by the Yutu-2 moon rover, on the far side of the moon

Moon Secret Discovered: It Collided With Dwarf Planet Over 4 Billion Years Ago

Shortly after the moon’s own genesis from a wayward planet’s cosmic crash into Earth, a second smaller planet slammed into the moon itself, suggest Meng Hua Zhu of Macau University and colleagues