News
-
Cytoplasm affects embryonic development
The DNA in a fertilized egg's mitochondria may play a pivotal role in the organism's growth.
- Health & Medicine
Protein may aid stroke recovery
Tests in mice have shown that erythropoietin, a red blood cell growth factor, can reverse brain damage caused by strokes.
By Nathan Seppa - Astronomy
Hole power
New computer simulations and observations are adding to the evidence that supermassive black holes control the growth of the galaxies they inhabit, wielding an influence far beyond their gravitational grasp.
By Ron Cowen - Archaeology
Pottery points to ‘mother culture’
The Olmec, a society that more than 3,000 years ago inhabited what is now Mexico's Gulf Coast, acted as a mother culture for communities located hundreds of miles away, according to a chemical analysis of pottery remains and local clays from ancient population sites in the area.
By Bruce Bower - Earth
Baking dirt to predict erosion after a fire
Lab tests suggest that a wide variety of soils exposed to the heat of intense wildfires end up with a similar resistance to erosion, a finding that may help scientists model that process more accurately.
By Sid Perkins - Health & Medicine
Cell transplants make gains versus diabetes
Transplanting insulin-making cells from a single cadaver into people with type 1 diabetes can reverse the disease in some people.
By Nathan Seppa - Earth
Winged solution to biopollution?
Government officials have released alien moths in hopes that they will rein in the spread of an aggressive climbing fern now invading some 100,000 acres in south Florida.
By Janet Raloff -
Healing secret lies in blood
An unknown factor in blood may be the key to why young people and animals heal much faster than old ones do.
- Ecosystems
Return of the Wetlands? Restoration possible for some Iraqi marshes
Field studies conducted in Iraq last year suggest that some of the region's ecologically devastated marshes could be returned to health.
By Sid Perkins - Health & Medicine
To Stanch the Flow: Hemophilia drug curbs brain hemorrhage
A blood-clotting drug helps some people recover from a bleeding stroke.
By Nathan Seppa - Physics
Electronic Soup: Molecules in acid broth act as circuit parts
An electronically promising molecule functions well in acid as a tiny amplifier, underscoring the importance of controlling molecules' electrochemical environments to achieve predictable performance.
By Peter Weiss -
Shrinking at Sea: Harvesting drives evolution toward smaller fishes
In response to fishing, numerous fish species have evolved to be smaller and to grow more slowly, creating populations of fish that are poor at reproducing and inefficient at bulking up.
By Ben Harder