Analyze This!
Exploring science through data, graphs, visualizations and more.
- Animals
Analyze This: Some dogs quickly learn new words
Two dogs picked up new words after hearing them a few times during play, but 20 other pets didn’t fare so well at learning the names of new toys.
- Climate
Analyze This: 2020 ties with 2016 for hottest year on record
Last year capped the warmest decade on record. It coincided with a growing increase of warming greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere.
- Environment
Analyze this: Microplastics are showing up in Mount Everest’s snow
Microplastics have made their way to the snow on Earth’s tallest peak. Most of the plastic likely comes from climbers’ equipment and clothes.
- Oceans
Analyze This: Shipwrecks provide a home for bottom-dwelling fish
Fish have found a habitat in a submarine and freighter that sunk to the seafloor during World War II.
- Animals
Analyze This: Ropes restore a gibbon highway through a rainforest
When endangered Hainan gibbons started making risky leaps across an area mowed down by a landslide, researchers provided them a rope bridge.
- Materials Science
Analyze This: Insect shells could help builders on Mars
When mixed with rocky soil, a compound called chitin makes a strong material. It could be pulled from the shells of insects used for food.
- Environment
Analyze This: Perfumes from everyday products collect in distant ice
Common scent-bearing chemicals are trapped in ice cored from Europe’s tallest peak. Dig into the data to find a story behind that pollution.
- Animals
Analyze This: Hurricanes may help lizards evolve better grips
Lizards have larger toepads in areas that tend to have higher hurricane activity. This suggests high winds select for those that can hang tight.
- Animals
Analyze This: Shimmering colors may help beetles hide
Delve into data showing how brilliant colors that shift as a viewer — or predator — moves may help iridescent insects blend in.
- Animals
Analyze This: Amphibian populations are on the decline
The chytrid fungus has been wiping out amphibians around the world. Scientists have tallied up the declines and found that the fungus is responsible for dozens of extinctions.
- Materials Science
Analyze This: Do exotic woods make better guitars?
When comparing the sound of guitars made from rare and costly woods to those made with common, cheaper alternatives, guitarists couldn’t tell much of a difference.
- Health & Medicine
Analyze This: Most teens have been cyberbullied
Name-calling was the most common type of six types of cyberbullying that surveyed teens reported.
