News
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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.
- 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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
