News
- Tech
Channeling light in the deep sea
Light-conducting fibers that naturally sprout from certain deep-sea sponges may hold lessons for makers of optical fibers for telecommunications.
- Animals
Risk of egg diseases may rush incubation
Bird eggs can catch infections through their shells, and that risk may be an overlooked factor in the puzzlingly early start of incubation.
- Physics
Particle decays hint at new matter
A surprising disagreement between particle-physics theory and a Japan-based research team's measurement of decay rates of matter and antimatter hints that unknown, heavy subatomic particles may exist.
-
Widows show third-year rebound
Women whose husbands die largely overcome their grief-related problems, including depression and social isolation, by about 3 years after their loss, according to a national study.
- Earth
River Stats Trickle In: Major floods may be waning in Europe
A new analysis of historical flood records from central Europe suggests that widespread inundations in the region have been on the wane for the past century or so.
- Health & Medicine
Paper Chased: Cancer-vaccine study is retracted
Researchers in Germany have retracted a paper that reported promising results for a vaccine that elicited immune responses against cancer cells.
- Health & Medicine
Sweet Relief: Comfort food calms, with weighty effect
Chronic stress might drive people to consume comfort foods that can soothe the brain.
-
DNA Tie for Two Disorders: Genetic defects link psychiatric ailments
Alterations of genes that produce a protective, fatty coating for brain cells may influence the development of both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
- Health & Medicine
Damage Patrol: Enzyme may reveal cancer susceptibility
People with lung cancer show less DNA-repair activity by a certain enzyme than people without the disease do.
- Physics
Fusion Boost: Promising path to heavy nuclei
By using radioactive nuclei as projectiles in accelerator-based nuclear collisions, scientists may be able to produce more readily than expected many exotic heavy nuclei that are impossible to make today but are crucial for future advances in nuclear physics.
- Astronomy
A Low Note in Cosmos: Sounding out a new role for black holes
Astronomers have for the first time detected sound waves generated by a black hole.
- Health & Medicine
Control of animal epidemic slowed human illness
Control measures implemented in response to the devastating animal epidemic of foot-and-mouth disease can apparently help curtail the spread of the cryptosporidium parasite, which sickens people.
