News
- Anthropology
‘Y guy’ steps into human-evolution debate
The common ancestor of today's males lived in Africa between 35,000 and 89,000 years ago, according to a contested DNA analysis.
- Physics
Signs of mass-giving particle get stronger
The promising search at a collider in Switzerland for the Higgs boson—the crucial and last undetected fundamental particle predicted by the central theory of particle physics—became even more of a cliff-hanger as a new, strong hint of the particle appeared on the eve of the machine's second scheduled demise.
- Health & Medicine
Killing immune cells thwarts arthritis
Researchers have successfully treated people with rheumatoid arthritis by temporarily wiping out most of their antibody-producing immune cells.
- Health & Medicine
Prostate enzyme triggers cancer drug
A new drug reverses advanced prostate cancer in mice by enlisting the aid of prostate-specific antigen, an enzyme found in most prostate tumors.
- Astronomy
Rendezvous gets more personal with Eros
Venturing closer to a space rock than any satellite has ever gone before, the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR)-Shoemaker mission last week took the sharpest images ever recorded of an asteroid.
- Paleontology
Early Biped Fossil Pops Up in Europe
A newly described, nearly complete 290-million-year-old fossil of an ancient reptile pushes back the evidence for terrestrial bipedalism by 60 million years.
- Animals
Shielded cells help fish ignore noise
Fish can sort out the interesting ripples from the background rush of water currents through sensors shielded in canals that run along their flanks.
- Astronomy
Puzzle on the Edge: The moon that isn’t there
Contrary to predictions, Sedna, the most distant object known in the solar system, does not appear to have a moon.
- Materials Science
Crafty Carriers: Armoring vesicles for more precise and reliable drug delivery
Materials scientists are designing tough, microscopic drug-delivery vesicles that could reach their targets intact and release their cargoes on cue.
- Health & Medicine
Zapping Wayward Cells: Therapy sheds light on transplant complication
Ultraviolet light can curb graft-versus-host disease, a common complication of bone marrow transplants, a study of mice shows.
- Math
Primal Progress: Pattern hunters spy order among prime numbers
The population of prime numbers includes an infinite collection of arithmetic progressions.
- Earth
Lava Life: Hints of microbes in ancient ocean rocks
Microscopic, carbon-lined tubes in lava that erupted onto the ocean floor about 3.5 billion years ago were etched by microbes, a number of signs suggest.
