News
- 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.
- Health & Medicine
Scientists retract ecstasy drug finding
Scientists have recanted a controversial report on the dangers of the drug commonly called ecstasy.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
-
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.
- 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.
- Materials Science
A Soft Touch: Imaging technique reveals hidden atoms
Researchers have devised a new imaging technique for visualizing every carbon atom in the basic unit of graphite.
-
Letting the Dog Genome Out: Poodle DNA compared with that of mice, people
Biologists have deciphered the DNA sequence of a poodle, an accomplishment that may help researchers study more than 300 human diseases that also affect dogs.
-
Faulty Memory: Long-term immunity isn’t always beneficial
Quickly losing immune-system defenses against some viruses may protect humans from far nastier bugs, a mathematical model suggests.
- Planetary Science
Galileo’s Demise: A planetary plunge, by Jove
Out of fuel and according to plan, the Galileo spacecraft ended an 8-year tour of Jupiter and its moons on Sept. 21, when it dove into the planet’s dense atmosphere.
