News in Brief
- Earth
Isolated coral reefs can regrow after bleaching
Having neighboring coral reefs is unnecessary for recovery.
- Physics
Quantum cryptography takes flight
Successful reading of photon beam sent from airplane may one day lead to encrypted satellite communications.
- Health & Medicine
Bird flu infects three in China
The H7N9 influenza virus has sickened three people, killing two, in first known human infections.
- Animals
Termites, not fairies, cause plant circles in African deserts
Underground insect engineers create water traps in the soil, allowing rings of green grasses in the sand.
- Life
Impending death alters crickets’ standards for mates
With a short time to live, parasite-infested females lose their preference for fast-chirping males.
- Life
Longhorn cattle ancestors came from Pakistan
New World breeds trace back to both major bovine lineages, genetic analysis shows.
- Physics
Highlights from the American Physical Society meeting
Highlights from the March meeting, held in Baltimore on March 18-22, 2013, include how fire ants need a little water to dig deep, what makes trees scream and a tiny crystal that can squeeze through an even tinier tube.
- Tech
Custom-designed legs help robots speed over sand
Six-legged machine runs across grainy surfaces.
- Humans
Twitter maps New York City, language by language
Apart from Spanish tweets that blanket the area, non-English tweets cluster in neighborhoods.
- Earth
Extreme storm surges may occur more often
Climate simulations suggest hurricane-caused flooding will increase in frequency as temperatures warm.
- Life
Bedbugs raise genetic defense against pesticides
Bedbugs turn on several genes, in both their shells and their nerve cells, to stave off effects of insecticides.
- Life
New virus uses protein handle to infect cells
Deadly coronavirus related to SARS attaches to protein on cells unlike the one SARS uses.
