News

  1. Physics

    Two New Elements Made: Atom smashups yield 113 and 115

    Two new elements—115 and 113—have joined the periodic table.

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  2. The Brain’s Word Act: Reading verbs revs up motor cortex areas

    A strip of brain tissue that regulates most voluntary movements also respond vigorously as people do nothing more than silently read active verbs.

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  3. Chemistry

    Nitrogen Unbound: New reaction breaks strong chemical link

    Researchers have developed a new way to turn nitrogen into ammonia that could improve upon an energy-intensive, 90-year-old method used to make fertilizers.

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  4. Animals

    Fish in the dark still size up mates

    Female cave fish still have their ancestral preference for a large male, even though it's too dark to see him.

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  5. Health & Medicine

    Malaria drug boosts recovery rates

    Adding the herbal-extract drug artesunate to standard malaria treatment reduces the relapse rate, even in areas where the malaria parasite is resistant to standard drugs.

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  6. Materials Science

    Light whips platinum into shape

    Scientists are exploiting the molecular machinery behind photosynthesis to create unique nanostructures out of platinum.

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  7. Chemistry

    Nature’s tiniest rotor runs like clockwork

    By manipulating a tiny protein found in most living cells, researchers created a molecular rotor that can convert mechanical motion into chemical energy.

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  8. Physics

    Goo’s melting could keep battery cool

    Using the sometimes dangerous heat of lithium batteries to melt wax or similar materials may keep the potent cells cool enough for safe use in electric vehicles while also boosting the batteries' performance.

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  9. Physics

    Electron cloud mirrors fossil life-form

    Remarkable molecules whose electron clouds would resemble now-extinct marine creatures called trilobites could appear in experiments on ultracold atom clouds known as Bose-Einstein condensates, theorists predict.

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  10. Health & Medicine

    Aging protein saps muscle strength

    Proteins crucial for muscle strength begin to function poorly as rats get older.

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  11. Health & Medicine

    HIV outwits immune system, again

    The AIDS virus uses immune system proteins to hitch rides on the antibody factories known as B cells, possibly helping it find potential host cells.

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  12. Same interviewer, better memories

    Children may remember details of a witnessed crime more accurately if the same person conducts successive interviews with them.

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