News
-
Bacterial Snitch: Species competes by telling on another
A bacterial species that typically colonizes people's noses may win out over another bacterium by tattling to the host's immune system.
-
AnimalsMeat-Eating Caterpillar: It hunts snails and ties them down
A newly named species of Hawaiian caterpillar sneaks up on a resting snail and quickly spins silk strands around it, lashing it to the spot, and then eats it.
By Susan Milius -
EarthUltrasound solution to toxin pollution
Ultrasound treatment of water can generate reactive chemicals that destroy potentially lethal algal toxins.
By Janet Raloff -
AstronomyGrand illusion
Astronomers have detected the most distant cosmic mirage ever recorded.
By Ron Cowen -
AnimalsLadybug mom provides infertile eggs as baby food
When food gets scarce, multicolored Asian ladybugs lay extra dud eggs that can end up as emergency rations for their young.
By Susan Milius -
Yellow color gives microbe its power
The bright-yellow pigment that tints the bacteria that cause staph infections is pivotal to the microbe's virulence.
-
Health & MedicineA problem at hand for catchers
A young professional baseball catcher, who may receive more than 100 pitches per game thrown at more than 90 miles per hour, may be virtually certain to develop circulatory abnormalities in his catching hand.
By Ben Harder -
AgricultureSoy-protein quality versus quantity
New tests show that as the protein yields of soybeans rise, the growth-enhancing quality of that protein as a food or feed decreases.
By Janet Raloff -
AnthropologyPeople fired up Aussie extinctions
Early Australian settlers may have altered the continent's landscape around 50,000 years ago, leading to the extinction of many animal species.
By Bruce Bower -
AstronomyCore mystery
Despite new images from the Hubble Space Telescope, the brightest known supernova of the past 400 years remains a puzzle for astronomers.
By Ron Cowen -
AstronomyTriple Play: A planet with three suns
Three suns grace the skies above a newly found, Jupiterlike extrasolar planet, posing a puzzle for how massive planets form in a closely-knit, multiple-star system.
By Ron Cowen -
PhysicsRealistic Time Machine? New design could forgo exotic ingredient
A novel time machine concept may avoid a problem of earlier, less-practical proposals by requiring only normal matter and the vacuum known to exist in space.
By Peter Weiss