News
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Gassing Up: Oxygen’s rise may have promoted complex life
The increasing amount of oxygen in Earth's atmosphere may have driven the emergence of complex life.
- Health & Medicine
Early Warning? Inflammatory protein is tied to colon cancer risk
C-reactive protein, an inflammatory protein linked to heart disease, might also signal susceptibility to colon cancer.
- 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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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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Materials Science
Light whips platinum into shape
Scientists are exploiting the molecular machinery behind photosynthesis to create unique nanostructures out of platinum.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Health & Medicine
Aging protein saps muscle strength
Proteins crucial for muscle strength begin to function poorly as rats get older.
