Stories by Meghan Bartels

Periodical cicadas have a clever hack to help them figure out when to emerge after more than a decade underground

Predicting what the sun will look like during a total solar eclipse is a helpful exercise for scientists in the long quest to understand how our star works

Celebrate the April 8 total solar eclipse with these livestreams from NASA, the NSF, Scientific American, and more

Scientists are finally getting their hands on enough data to begin to understand how animals react to a total solar eclipse

Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks is hiding a strange spiral in its icy heart—and it may tell scientists about the comet’s innards

Pythons turn their food into meat pretty efficiently, a study finds, making them an intriguing alternative to climate-unfriendly cows

Earthlings are very lucky to see the spectacle of a total solar eclipse

The U.S. is seeing two adjacent broods of periodical cicadas emerge this spring in a synchronized marvel of evolution

One in four Labrador retrievers carries a gene that tricks their brain into thinking they’re starving

Pets can’t report their dreams, but scientists have some evidence about what is happening when Sparky and Mittens sleep

People’s perceptions about who gets an abortion and why rely on stereotypes and misconceptions—with potential policy implications

Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks will make its closest approach to the sun this April—right after North America is treated to a total solar eclipse

A lunar lander nicknamed Odie carries 125 small moon sculptures by artist Jeff Koons that could become the first authorized artwork on the moon

Four years into the pandemic, many people have had COVID more than once—but the health consequences of repeat infections are not yet clear

Scientists are watching closely to see whether avian influenza will reach Antarctica before this year’s penguin chicks disperse for the season

“We’re still in a pandemic,” says a lead COVID official with the World Health Organization

During close flybys of Jupiter’s volcanic moon Io, NASA’s Juno spacecraft captured stunning “bonus science” about the nightmarish world

NASA’s enterprising Mars helicopter and its remarkable 72 flights offered a new vision of planetary exploration

Big-headed ants are invading new territories in Kenya—and the consequences are rippling through the whole ecosystem, scientists have found

Scientists built a robotic dinosaur to terrify grasshoppers, all in hopes of understanding how truly pathetic wings could offer prehistoric animals an evolutionary advantage

The last time North Americans caught a total solar eclipse, the sun was in a lull of activity. This year’s eclipse will be very different

Tardigrades are microscopic animals that can survive a host of conditions that are too extreme to ever occur on Earth—and scientists want to learn their secrets

How salt makes roads safer in winter—and why new methods could be better for the environment

This week’s cold snap across the U.S. will be one of “the most impressive Arctic outbreaks of this century,” one climate scientist says