News

  1. Earth

    Twin satellites track water’s rise and fall

    A pair of satellites launched in 2002 has detected small, regional changes in Earth's gravitational field that are caused by seasonal variations in rainfall and soil moisture.

    By Sid Perkins
  2. Humans

    Where Ph.D.s pay off

    Salaries for full-time scientists and engineers in the United States have generally outpaced inflation, but academic researchers tend to earn substantially less than their counterparts in industry and government.

    By Janet Raloff
  3. Materials Science

    Charging gold with a single electron

    Dropping a single electron onto a gold atom with a scanning tunneling microscope converts gold from its neutral state to an ionic state.

    By Alexandra Goho
  4. Tech

    Quantum dots light up cancer cells in mice

    Brightly fluorescent crystals known as quantum dots have the potential to seek out cancerous cells in the body, a trick that could lead to highly precise cancer screening.