News
- Physics
Why isn’t the sky violet, Daddy?
A new analysis of why the sky looks blue reveals that the reason may be the combined effects of the atmosphere and of our eyes' color-sensing apparatus.
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Bipolar kids harbor unique brain trait
Children and teenagers with bipolar disorder, a severe mental ailment that involves sharp mood swings, display unusually low tissue volume in a brain area involved in learning to regulate emotions.
- Physics
In search of the imperfect nanocrystal
Semiconductor nanocrystals can incorporate property-enhancing impurities into their growing structures as long as the crystals have facets onto which such atoms can strongly adhere.
- Earth
Weighty evidence on testicular cancer
New evidence supports a theory that men who were exposed to excess estrogenic hormones at an early stage of fetal development may face an elevated risk of testicular cancer.
- Astronomy
A new X-ray eye on the cosmos
To study some of the hottest regions in the universe, the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency has launched the coldest instrument ever flown.
- Archaeology
Judeo-Christian ties buried in Rome
New radiocarbon dates from one of ancient Rome's underground cemeteries, or catacombs, indicates that these structures were built in the Jewish community more than a century before early Christians started to do the same.
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Cell death may spur aging
Genetic mutations in cells' internal powerhouses could contribute to aging by stifling tissue maintenance.
- Health & Medicine
Tumors in Touch: Cancer cells spur vessel formation through contact
Some tumor cells use a newfound mechanism to prompt neighboring cells into forming blood vessels that then nourish the cancer.
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Reflections of Primate Minds: Mirror images strike monkeys as special
Capuchin monkeys don't react to their own mirror images as they do to strangers, perhaps reflecting an intermediate stage of being able to distinguish oneself from others.
- Astronomy
Crater Shake: Tremors erased asteroid’s topography
Seismic shock waves from a large meteor impact on the asteroid Eros might have rearranged surface rubble, destroying crater structures over much of the asteroid.
- Tech
Tapping Tiny Pores: Nanovalves control chemical releases
After creating arrays of nanovalves, each made from a single molecule, chemists used them to generate minuscule chemical discharges.
- Earth
Under Pressure: High-stress tests show surprising change in a mantle mineral’s behavior
Compressing a common iron-bearing mineral to the pressures found deep within Earth makes the material much stiffer, which might explain why seismic waves travel particularly fast through some zones of rock.
