News
- Health & Medicine
Primate virus found in zoo workers
Viruses related to HIV can be found in the blood of some zoo staff and other people who work with primates, although the infections don't appear to be harmful.
By Ben Harder - Archaeology
How agriculture ground to a start
A major advance in agriculture occurred around 11,000 years ago, when western Asians began to walk through patches of wild barley and wheat and scoop handfuls of ripened grains off the ground, a report suggests.
By Bruce Bower -
Blocked gene gives mice super smell
Deactivating a single gene can produce mice with an abnormally sharp sense of smell.
By John Travis - Astronomy
Finding the star that was
Sifting through archival images, astronomers have identified the star whose explosive demise was recorded by telescopes last year.
By Ron Cowen - Chemistry
Radical molecule could produce plastic magnets
A team of chemists has synthesized an unusual organic molecule that could lead to cheaper and lighter magnets.
- Physics
Nuclear pudding—to go
Moving at nearly the speed of light, atomic nuclei hurtling through a huge particle collider may become mostly dense, flattened puddings of nuclear particles known as gluons.
By Peter Weiss - Health & Medicine
Putting the brakes on toxic shock
Scientists have discovered the cascade of molecular events that underpins many cases of toxic shock syndrome.
By Nathan Seppa - Physics
New supergas debuts
A cloud of ultracold potassium atoms, manipulated by means of a magnetic field, has coalesced into a new super form of matter called a fermionic condensate.
By Peter Weiss - Health & Medicine
Some T cells may be a fetus’ best friend
While pregnant, mice overproduce a kind of T cell that reins in other immune cells that might target the fetus.
By Nathan Seppa - Planetary Science
A view of Mars, European style
Although the Mars lander Beagle 2 is presumed dead, its mother craft, the European Space Agency's Mars Express, has transmitted its first data from a polar orbit about the Red Planet.
By Ron Cowen - Tech
The rat in the hat
A compact positron-emission tomography (PET) brain scanner may make possible studies of awake rats that link brain functions and behaviors.
By Peter Weiss - Health & Medicine
Pill Puzzle: Do antibiotics increase breast cancer risk?
A new study links antibiotic use to breast cancer, although it's not clear the drugs cause the disease.
By John Travis