All Stories

  1. Health & Medicine

    Human skin bacteria have cancer-fighting powers

    Strains of a bacteria that live on human skin make a compound that suppressed tumor growth in mice.

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  2. Microbes

    A new way to make bacteria glow could simplify TB screening

    A new dye to stain tuberculosis bacteria in coughed-up mucus and saliva could expedite TB diagnoses and drug-resistance tests.

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  3. Cosmology

    Here’s when the universe’s first stars may have been born

    The first stars lit the cosmos by 180 million years after the Big Bang, radio observations suggest.

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  4. Health & Medicine

    When it comes to baby’s growth, early pregnancy weight may matter more than later gains

    Women’s weight before and during the first half of pregnancy may be most important indicators of baby’s birth weight.

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  5. Astronomy

    Watch an experimental space shield shred a speeding bullet

    Engineers tested how well a prototype shield for spacecraft would stand up to space debris by shooting it with a solid aluminum pellet.

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  6. Cosmology

    Remembering Joe Polchinski, the modest physicist who conceived a multiverse

    String theorists lament the death of Joe Polchinski, one of their field’s most esteemed and respected thinkers.

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  7. Life

    A rare rainstorm wakes undead microbes in Chile’s Atacama Desert

    Microbial life in Chile’s Atacama Desert bursts into bloom when moisture is available.

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  8. Life

    These giant viruses have more protein-making gear than any known virus

    Scientists have found two more giant viruses in extreme environments in Brazil.

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  9. Animals

    This scratchy hiss is the closest thing yet to caterpillar vocalization

    A new way that caterpillars make noise may involve (tiny) teakettle‒style turbulence.

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  10. Neuroscience

    Some flu strains can make mice forgetful

    Mice infected with influenza had memory problems a month later, a result that hints at a link between infections and brain performance.

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  11. Particle Physics

    The quest to identify the nature of the neutrino’s alter ego is heating up

    The search is on for a rare nuclear decay that could prove neutrinos are their own antiparticles and shed light on the universe’s antimatter mystery.

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  12. Quantum Physics

    Two-way communication is possible with a single quantum particle

    One photon can transmit information in two directions at once.

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