News
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Bean weevils get a kick out of mates
Breeding in stored grain throughout the tropics, bean weevils represent an unusually clear example of the evolutionary male-female arms race.
By Susan Milius -
Squirrels save for the family’s future
Some female red squirrels hoard extra food for youngsters that haven't yet been conceived.
By Susan Milius -
Astronomy
Nudging asteroid fragments toward Earth
New computer simulations detail how fragments of asteroids travel to Earth and rain down as meteorites.
By Ron Cowen -
Materials Science
New work improves stainless steel surface
A novel electrochemical method improves the surface of stainless steel without making the metal brittle or prone to corrosion.
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Animals
Second bird genus shares dart-frog toxins
Researchers have found a second bird genus, also in New Guinea, that carries the same toxins as poison-dart frogs in Central and South America.
By Susan Milius -
Planetary Science
Radio link may hamper a Titan probe
A recently discovered communications problem could prevent the Huygens probe from relaying all of its precious data when it parachutes through the cloud-bedecked atmosphere of Saturn's largest moon, Titan, in 2004.
By Ron Cowen -
Model explains bubonic plague’s persistence
A computer model of bubonic plague suggests rats can harbor the disease for years before a human epidemic breaks out.
By John Travis -
Physics
Protons may waltz off nuclear dance floor
Detection of proton pairs simultaneously emitted from neon nuclei raises the possibility that a new and long-sought window into the nucleus has been found and unlocked.
By Peter Weiss -
Archaeology
Stone Age statuettes don disputed apparel
A report describing woven caps, skirts, belts, and other apparel on Venus figurines from the Stone Age draws some critical responses.
By Bruce Bower -
Earth
Flaws make it a geologist’s best friend
By analyzing some of a diamond's trapped impurities, researchers were able to measure remnants of the gargantuan pressure that produced the gem.
By Sid Perkins -
Health & Medicine
AIDS Vaccine Tests Well in Monkeys
An experimental AIDS vaccine bolstered with two immune proteins protects rhesus monkeys from the disease even when they are exposed to a combination of simian and human immunodeficiency virus.
By Nathan Seppa -
Animals
New Green Eyes: First butterfly that’s genetically modified
Scientists have genetically engineered a butterfly for the first time, putting a jellyfish protein into a tropical African species so that its eyes fluoresce green.
By Susan Milius