News
- Health & Medicine
Hepatitis C drugs are less effective in black patients
A standard drug combination for hepatitis C is less likely to knock out the virus in blacks than in whites.
- Earth
Newspaper’s Footprint: Environmental toll of all the news that’s fit to print
The environmental impacts of getting a newspaper dropped on your doorstep each morning vastly outweigh those of receiving the same information via a handheld electronic device.
- Chemistry
Weighty Discovery: Chemical screening technique identifies potential anthrax drug
A new version of mass spectrometry could speed the process of drug discovery by enabling more accurate screening of thousands of chemicals at once.
- Animals
Well-Tuned Bats: These animals are what they hear
Two studies of bats find that neighbors can live in virtually different worlds because their echolocation calls are tuned to detect different prey.
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Genetic Pickup: Did animals get brain genes from bacteria?
Genes that make brain chemicals may have been acquired from bacteria.
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Setting a Stage for Cancer: Another reason for women not to drink while pregnant
Drinking alcohol during pregnancy can cause a range of birth defects in newborns, and researchers have now shown that, in rats, it also increases the risk of breast tumors in adult offspring.
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A Fetching Lexicon: Language clues come from dog’s vocabulary
A research team finds that a 9-year-old border collie displays a keen facility for learning word meanings, providing new support for the theory that simple types of thinking practiced by some nonhuman animals also make word learning possible in toddlers.
- Physics
Corralling the Mass Maker: Hunting ground shifts for elusive particle
Hunters of the most eagerly sought particle in high-energy physics, the Higgs boson, are gleaning fresh clues about where and how to look from a new finding about another fundamental particle called the top quark.
- Tech
DNA puts its best foot forward
A robot made of DNA has taken its first steps, suggesting that such devices could eventually be used for nanoscale manufacturing.
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Chimp DNA yields complex surprises
A molecular comparison of chromosome 22 in chimpanzees with its counterpart in people reveals surprisingly complex genetic differences between the two species.
- Health & Medicine
Green tea takes on poison
Green tea contains a broad range of compounds that detoxify dioxin.
- Tech
Microwave mirror hits the spot
A technique for rebounding and refocusing sound also works for electromagnetic waves, possibly opening new uses ranging from improving cell phone communication to treating illness.
