News
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AnimalsShortcut to Big Heart: Pythons build cardiac muscle in record time
A Burmese python can boost its cardiac fitness—by bulking up its heart muscle 40 percent in two days—just by eating.
By Susan Milius -
AstronomyNursery Pictures: Astronomers glimpse primordial clustering
Astronomers have found the earliest traces of galaxy clustering, from a period just 1 billion years after the birth of the universe.
By David Shiga -
EarthWarm Spell: Arctic algae record shift in climate
Analyses of sediment samples taken from remote arctic lakes indicate that the climate across large swaths of the Northern Hemisphere has been warming for many decades.
By Sid Perkins -
Health & MedicineMeasuring HIV’s Cost: Treatment adds years, but many still miss out
Medical care for people infected with HIV has already saved about 2 million years of life in the United States, but more than 200,000 HIV-infected Americans are not benefiting from drugs that could extend their lives.
By Ben Harder -
PhysicsBrutal Bubbles: Collapsing orbs rip apart atoms
Spikes of heat and pressure in sonoluminescence caused by the implosions of light-emitting bubbles in liquids can strip atoms of electrons.
By Peter Weiss -
Cytoplasm affects embryonic development
The DNA in a fertilized egg's mitochondria may play a pivotal role in the organism's growth.
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Health & MedicineProtein 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 -
AstronomyHole 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 -
ArchaeologyPottery 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 -
EarthBaking 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 & MedicineCell 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 -
EarthWinged 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