News
- Earth
Even Nunavut gets plenty of dioxin
Within a few weeks, some of the dioxin generated by industrial activities in the United States and Mexico falls out in the high Arctic.
- Animals
Beetle fights bass in mouthwash duel
A whirligig beetle duels with a hungry fish by dribbling out a repulsive chemical while the fish tries to rinse it off.
- Health & Medicine
Drug spares eggs from early death
A newly discovered drug that prevents radiation from hastening egg cell death in mice might also prevent some human cancer patients from suffering sterility and premature menopause.
- Astronomy
New Images: They Might Be Planets
Astronomers have for the first time obtained images of as many as 18 objects beyond our solar system that, based on their mass alone, could qualify as planets.
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- Animals
Cheap Taste? Bowerbirds go for bargain decor
When male spotted bowerbirds collect sticks and other doodads to wow females, they don't search for the rare showpiece but go for the cheap trinket.
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9/11’s Fatal Road Toll: Terror attacks presaged rise in U.S. car deaths
Federal data indicate that fear of flying after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks caused a second toll of lives on U.S. roads in the last three months of that year.
- Earth
Bogged Down: Ancient peat may be missing methane source
Massive peat bogs in Russia may have been a major source of atmospheric methane just after the end of the last ice age.
- Materials Science
Marine Superglue: Mussels get stickiness from iron in seawater
The secret behind the binding power of mussel glue lies in iron extracted from seawater.
- Astronomy
Astronomy: Man Bites Dog; Planet heats its star
Observing a sunlike star 90 light-years from Earth, astronomers have found evidence of a closely orbiting planet heating its star.
- Health & Medicine
Clear Airways: Quelling a protein stops mucus overload
By interfering with a protein that earlier research implicated in mucus secretion, scientists have countered overstimulation of mucus secretion in the airways of mice.
- Physics
A Solid Like No Other: Frigid, solid helium streams like a liquid
Frozen helium prepared in a laboratory has apparently transformed into a superfluid solid, or supersolid—a never-before-seen phase of matter that theorists predicted more than 30 years ago.
