News
- Paleontology
First Family’s last stand
New evidence indicates that about 3.2 million years ago, at least 17 Australopithecus afarensis individuals were killed at the same time by large predators at an eastern African site.
- Astronomy
Fast-track planet
Astronomers have found a planet that's the closest yet known to its parent star, whipping around the star every 28.5 hours.
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Second cold-sensing protein found
Researchers have found a second mammalian cell-surface protein that enables nerve cells to recognize cold temperatures.
- Animals
Ballistic defecation: Hiding, not hygiene
Evading predators may be the big factor driving certain caterpillars to shoot their waste pellets great distances.
- Health & Medicine
Upsetting a Delicate Balance: One gene may underlie various immune diseases
One form of an immune-system gene shows up more frequently in people with diabetes or certain thyroid diseases than in people free of those illnesses.
- Astronomy
Chemistry of the Cosmos: Quasars illuminate the young universe
Measuring the composition of some of the earliest structures in the universe, two teams of astronomers have unveiled new findings about star formation in the young cosmos.
- Chemistry
Nanoscale Networks: Superlong nanotubes can form a grid
Researchers have made extraordinarily long carbon nanotubes and aligned them to create tiny transistors and sensors for detecting chemical and biological agents.
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Paddle Power: Surprising shape of key cellular pore unveiled
A molecular pore that controls the flow of ions into cells has an unexpected shape and mechanism.
- Earth
Sensing a vibe
A sprawling network of seismometers that covers the Los Angeles area could be adapted to provide warning of damaging ground motions from earthquakes in the seconds before those seismic vibes arrive.
- Physics
Crystal Bash: Shocking changes to light’s properties
Prized, light-manipulating microstructures known as photonic crystals may transform light in new and technologically tantalizing ways when jolted by shock waves.
- Anthropology
Ancestral Bushwhack: Hominid tree gets trimmed twice
In separate presentations at scientific meetings, two anthropologists challenged the influential view that the human evolutionary family has contained as many as 20 different fossil species.
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Do people flirt like guppies?
Researchers who have studied how female guppies copy other females' choice of mate are tackling the same question in Homo sapiens.
