Scientists have long known structural differences exist between the brains of males and females. But for the first time, researchers have discovered differences in the brain anatomy of men and women that appear directly linked to sex chromosomes. Though the study—published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Aug. 4—does not prove sex chromosomes cause differences in brain structure, it does suggest some differences may come hardwired at birth.

WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump has threatened to ban the trendy social media app in the United States. Microsoft, which is in discussions with TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance to buy the social networking service’s operations in the United States and other English-speaking countries, said it would address the president’s concerns. Microsoft expects negotiations to end by mid-September and said it may bring on other U.S. investors to help purchase TikTok.

Dolphins off the coast of Western Australia are adapting to their environment much more quickly than the theory of evolution can account for. Over the past 15 years, researchers studying bottlenose dolphins in Shark Bay observed the animals engaging in a new hunting technique called shelling. The dolphins learned how to chase their prey into giant empty seashells, then pick up the shell with their beak and transport it to the water’s surface.

A 4.2-magnitude earthquake near NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California didn’t stop the next NASA Mars rover from lifting off in Florida on Thursday morning. The car-sized Perseverance craft and its collection of cameras, microphones, drills, and lasers launched into space on an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral. The rover, which was spearheaded by the NASA lab in Pasadena, should arrive on Mars in February 2021 at the end of a 300-million-mile journey.

The number of coronavirus cases keeps rising, but the death rate of COVID-19 patients in intensive care is going down. New research shows coronavirus ICU mortality decreasing by nearly one-third from March through May.

A Long March-5 carrier rocket lifted off from Hainan Island, south of mainland China, on Thursday to the cheers of onlookers from a beach across the bay. Launch commander Zhang Xueyu confirmed the Tianwen-1, also called “quest for heavenly truth,” entered the scheduled orbit. The spacecraft, which includes an orbiter and a rover, is expected to journey for seven months to Mars, where it will look for underground water and evidence of possible ancient life. 

We all know that if someone with COVID-19 coughs on us, we might catch the disease. But what if we have a conversation with an infected person, or sit in the same restaurant, or pass them on the street?