News
- Chemistry
Cleaning up anthrax
Chemists have developed catalysts that spur common oxidants to quickly destroy germs, including deadly anthrax spores.
- Astronomy
Belt Tightening: Icy orbs are surprisingly small
Objects in the distant reservoir of comets known as the Kuiper belt are intrinsically much brighter, and therefore smaller, than previously thought.
- Health & Medicine
Lingering Loss: In 2-year diet trial, new pill keeps off weight
Obese adults who lose weight during a year of taking an experimental diet drug, rimonabant, and dieting keep the weight off during the following year, if they continue the regimen.
- Health & Medicine
Problems for Preemies: Early birth is linked to insulin overproduction
Children born prematurely are more likely than their full-term counterparts to develop insulin resistance, a marker for diabetes.
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Unhealthy Change: Diversity in a bacterial colony can prolong infections
Bacteria that live in biofilms can diversify into several different types, making infections harder to treat.
- Tech
Lighthearted Transistor: Electronic workhorse moonlights as laser
A versatile new transistor amplifies electricity and emits a laser beam.
- Chemistry
Busy Beads: Magnetic dust takes droplets for a ride
With a bit of dust and a magnet, chemists can shuttle drops around on a surface, an advance that could lead to chemistry labs on a chip.
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Profiles in Melancholy, Resilience: Abused kids react to genetics, adult support
Abused and neglected children who possess two copies of a gene that affects brain chemistry develop depression at an elevated rate only if they also lack support from at least one adult.
- Paleontology
Plenty of dinosaurs yet to be found
Despite a dramatic surge in dinosaur discoveries in recent years, paleontologists won't soon run out of interesting new fossils to unearth, a new analysis suggests.
- Paleontology
. . . and the big bird that didn’t
The California condor, one of today's largest and rarest birds, may have survived the last ice age because of its varied diet.
- Paleontology
The big fish that went away . . .
Fossils found near Charleston, S.C., suggest that an extinct species of billfish related to today's swordfish and marlin would easily exceed the lengths documented for world-record specimens of those oft-sought sports fish.
- Health & Medicine
Staph receptor as drug target
A receptor molecule on the surface of the bacterium Staphylococcus aureus might present an exploitable weak spot in the microbe's defenses.
