News
- Earth
Treaty enacted to preserve crop biodiversity
The United Nations enacted a new international treaty to halt the erosion of genetic diversity of crops.
- Planetary Science
Titanic Images, Groovy Shots: Cassini arrives at Saturn
After a 7-year, 3.5-billion-mile journey, the Cassini spacecraft last week slipped through a gap between two of the icy rings circling Saturn and became the first spacecraft to orbit the distant planet.
- Earth
City Heat: Urban areas’ warmth affects plant growth
Satellite observations of eastern North America show that plants in and around urban areas bud earlier in the spring and retain their foliage later in the fall than do plants in nearby rural settings.
- Agriculture
Plastic vs. Plants: Mulch method changes tomato’s gene activity
A suite of at least 10 genes in a tomato plant behaves differently depending on the farmer's mulch-and-fertilizer routine.
- Anthropology
Living Long in the Tooth: Grandparents may have rocked late Stone Age
A new analysis of fossil teeth indicates that the number of people surviving long enough to become grandparents dramatically increased about 30,000 years ago.
- Earth
Just a Tad Is Too Much: Less is worse for tadpoles exposed to chemicals
The herbicide atrazine is more likely to kill developing amphibians when it is highly diluted than when it's much more concentrated in aquatic environments.
- Physics
Grainy Geyser: Tall squirts reveal sand’s liquid ways
Dropping a steel ball into fine, loosely packed sand produces towering jets of grains.
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Clearing Up Blurry Vision: Scientists gaze toward causes of myopia
Scientists are beginning to unravel the genetic mechanism that causes nearsightedness.
- Archaeology
Mexican murals store magnetic data
Tiny magnetic particles in the pigments of some Mexican murals recorded the direction of Earth's magnetic field when the paint dried.
- Health & Medicine
Protective enzyme has a downside: Asthma
The abnormal production of a parasite-fighting enzyme contributes to asthma.
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Watching the biological clock
Biologists now have a way to predict when a woman will start menopause.
- Archaeology
Rat DNA points to Pacific migrations
An analysis of mitochondrial DNA from Pacific rats supports a theory that ancestors of today's Polynesians migrated from Southeast Asia to a string of South Pacific islands in at least two separate dispersals.
