News
- Tech
Press ‘n’ Peel Lasers: Coaxing light beams out of cheap plastic
Researchers have devised a way to imprint lasers in plastic—an achievement that may one day lead to ultracheap lasers mass-produced like poker chips.
- Astronomy
Sky Prospecting: Surveying the universe’s middle-aged galaxies
With a new sky survey, astronomers can tell the story of what happened during the universe’s middle years—about 7 billion years ago.
- Earth
Long-Term Ocean Venting: Seafloor system has been active for ages
Analyses of mineral deposits in and around a unique set of hydrothermal vents beneath the Atlantic Ocean suggest that the site's tallest towers of minerals have been growing for at least 30,000 years.
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Giving Aid, Staying Alive: Elderly helpers have longevity advantage
Over a 5-year period, older people who offered a lot of social support to their spouses, friends, relatives, and neighbors displayed a lower mortality rate than seniors who gave little or no social support.
- Health & Medicine
Intestinal Fortitude: Treatment for colitis shows early success
Given as a drug, a protein fragment called epidermal growth factor induces remission in people with ulcerative colitis, apparently by healing intestinal lesions.
- Health & Medicine
Promising drug cuts tumor metabolism
Early safety trials of an experimental medicine suggest that it could be used for treating several serious cancers.
- Health & Medicine
Immune test predicts tolerance for radiation
A new blood test can foretell which cancer patients are likely to suffer serious delayed side effects from radiation therapy.
- Health & Medicine
Genes linked to colon cancer take sides
Cancers on opposite sides of the colon are genetically distinct and should be studied and treated as separate entities.
- Health & Medicine
Herbal therapy may carry cancer danger
An herbal extract that some women use to relieve symptoms of menopause increases the likelihood in mice with breast cancer that the disease will spread.
- Health & Medicine
Keeping breathing steady and safe
Scientists may have found a way to avoid the lowered breathing rate that comes from treatment with morphine or other opiate-based narcotics and anesthetics.
- Astronomy
Dusty times on Mars
On July 1, a dust cloud emerged from Mars' Hellas Basin, and 3 days later it had become 1,800 kilometers wide, roughly one-fourth the Red Planet’s diameter.
- Earth
Greenland ice variation appears normal
Changes in snowfall observed in parts of southern Greenland between 1978 and 1988 appear to be normal if gauged against the variations recorded in ice cores over the past 400 years.
