News

  1. Health & Medicine

    One bug’s bane may be another’s break

    People who carry pneumococcus bacteria in their nasal passages may be partially protected against having their noses colonized by Staphylococcus aureus.

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  2. Health & Medicine

    Drug combination unexpectedly flops

    A combination of therapies that researchers anticipated would work well against HIV failed to stop the virus from replicating in more than half the volunteers who received it.

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  3. Health & Medicine

    Resistant staph spreads in communities

    Antibiotic-resistant Staphylococcus aureus—once a problem limited mainly to health care settings—has become a menace in communities around the world.

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  4. Toronto travelers wash their hands of disease

    Air travelers in Toronto, which experienced an outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak earlier this year, are more likely to wash their hands after using public restrooms than are travelers in other major North American airports.

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  5. Health & Medicine

    Amid bleak outlook, antibiotic shines

    Encouraging research on a novel antibiotic offers a rare shot of optimism at a time when existing microbe-killing compounds are losing effectiveness and efforts to develop replacements are flagging.

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  6. Health & Medicine

    Scientists retract ecstasy drug finding

    Scientists have recanted a controversial report on the dangers of the drug commonly called ecstasy.

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  7. Health & Medicine

    Broken arms way up

    Broken arms among adolescents have risen sharply from 30 years ago, possibly because of the popularity of high-risk sports such as skateboarding and a combination of less milk intake and more soft drink consumption.

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  8. Archaeology

    Ancient tunnel keeps biblical date

    Radiocarbon dating of material from an ancient tunnel in Jerusalem indicates that the passage was built around 700 B.C., supporting a biblical account of the tunnel's construction.

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  9. Paleontology

    Some trilobites grew their own eyeshades

    The 380-million-year-old fossil of a trilobite strongly suggests that members of at least some trilobite species were active during the daytime, a lifestyle that scientists previously had only suspected.

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  10. Plants

    Bean plants punish microbial partners

    In a novel test of how partnerships between species can last in nature, researchers have found that soybeans punish cheaters.

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  11. Breathless: Reef fish cope with low oxygen

    A coral reef may look like a high-oxygen paradise, but the first respiration tests of fish there show an unexpected tolerance for low oxygen.

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  12. Archaeology

    Origins of Smelting: Lake yields core of pre-Inca silver making

    Metal concentrations in soil extracted from a Bolivian lake indicate that silver production in the region began 1,000 years ago, 4 centuries before well-known silver-making efforts by the Incas.

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