News
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Low-cal diet may reduce cancer in monkeys
Researchers monitoring monkeys have seen signs that slashing normal calorie consumption can benefit long-lived primates by extending natural life spans and reducing the odds of suffering diseases such as cancer.
By John Travis -
Materials ScienceTo make bronze, tin flakes do a wild dance
Upsetting some prevailing ideas about how alloys form, rafts of tin atoms jitterbug madly around on a pure copper surface and leave spots of bronze in their wakes.
By Peter Weiss -
Health & MedicineSputum Test May Predict Lung Cancer
By zeroing in on aberrations in two cancer-fighting genes, researchers have found a marker for cancer risk that could help doctors screen people for signs of lung cancer early enough for treatment to be effective.
By Nathan Seppa -
Health & MedicineOld-fashioned circumcision can spread herpes
Boys whose ritual circumcisions involve an ancient, and now rare, practice may acquire herpes during the operation.
By Ben Harder -
Health & MedicineSevere sweating treated with Botox
A new treatment has been approved for excessive sweating, or hyperhidrosis, which is surprisingly common.
By Ben Harder -
Mechanism suggested for Guam illness
A research team has invoked protein chemistry to propose a solution to a long-standing neuroscience mystery in Guam.
By Susan Milius -
Planetary ScienceThe sound of rings
When Cassini reached Saturn on June 30, it twice dashed through a gap in the planet's rings, and onboard science instruments recorded a flurry of ring dust harmlessly striking the spacecraft.
By Ron Cowen -
Health & MedicineHIV drugs may stop cervical disease
A drug combination given to people with HIV, the AIDS virus, helps knock out precancerous cervical lesions in some women.
By Nathan Seppa -
Planetary ScienceMeteorites quickly reach Earth
Fragments from collisions between large bodies in the asteroid belt can reach Earth in as little as 100,000 years.
By Sid Perkins -
Worm to elephant: New genome targets
The National Human Genome Research Institute has released a list of 18 wildly different creatures as targets for genome sequencing.
By Susan Milius -
PaleontologyBird Brain? Cranial scan of fossil hints at flight capability
Detailed computerized tomography scans of the fossilized braincase of an Archaeopteryx show that several flight-related regions of the feathered creature's brain were highly developed.
By Sid Perkins -
Health & MedicineSwallowed a Fly: Insects may spread foodborne microbe to chickens
Flies sucked through the ventilation ports of industrial chicken coops may spread the pathogen Campylobacter jejuni, which can ultimately sicken people who eat undercooked chicken.
By Ben Harder