News
- Earth
Flame retardants morph into dioxins
Sunlight can break down common flame retardants, now nearly ubiquitous in the environment, into unusual chemicals in the dioxin family.
- Earth
Reused paper can be polluted
Toxic chemicals can end up in recycled paper, making release of these reused materials into the environment potentially harmful.
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Troubling Treat: Guam mystery disease from bat entrée?
A famous unsolved medical puzzle of why a neurological disease spiked on Guam may hinge on the local tradition of serving boiled bat.
- Chemistry
Diamond in the rough
Researchers have found a collection of previously undiscovered diamondlike compounds in oil.
- Health & Medicine
Bone Builder: New drug could heal hard-to-mend fractures
A synthetic compound can heal broken bones that are so damaged they don't knit on their own, a study in rats and dogs shows.
- Materials Science
Melt-Resistant Metals: Carbon coating keeps atoms in order
Shrink-wrapped in carbon, nanoscale metal chunks melt at extraordinarily high temperatures, suggesting carbon coatings as a route to higher heat resistance for materials and devices.
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Gypsy Secret: Children of sea see clearly underwater
Children who regularly dive to collect food have better-than-normal underwater vision because their eyes adapt to the liquid environment.
- Tech
Columbia Disaster Working Hypothesis: Wing hit by debris
The independent board investigating the breakup of the space shuttle presented its first detailed account of what might have caused the Feb. 1 disaster.
- Earth
Going Down? Probe could ride to Earth’s core in a mass of molten iron
A geophysicist suggests that scientists could explore Earth's inner structure by sending a grapefruit-size probe on a week-long mission to the Earth's core inside a crust-busting mass of molten iron.
- Anthropology
Stone Age Genetics: Ancient DNA enters humanity’s heritage
Genetic material extracted from the bones of European Stone Age Homo sapiens, sometimes called Cro-Magnons, bolsters the theory that people evolved independently of Neandertals.
- Humans
Sea burial for Canada’s cod fisheries
The Canadian government has declared an end to cod fishing in nearly all of the country’s Atlantic waters.
- Materials Science
Zeolites get an organic makeover
Scientists can now incorporate organic groups into the framework of zeolites, a kind of inorganic crystal.
