News

  1. Health & Medicine

    A hot new therapy?

    Spending time in a sauna improves heart function in people with chronic heart failure.

    By Damaris Christensen
  2. Planetary Science

    Seeing Saturn

    After 5 years of interplanetary travel, the Saturn-bound Cassini spacecraft has taken its first picture of the ringed planet.

    By Ron Cowen
  3. Health & Medicine

    Protein may signal heart problems

    A protein already linked to inflammation is also a strong predictor of heart problems.

    By Nathan Seppa
  4. Health & Medicine

    Natural fluoride isn’t quite enough

    In the absence of a public water-fluoridation program in eastern Germany, natural background concentrations of fluoride in drinking water affect children’s dental health.

    By Ben Harder
  5. Earth

    Child-care sites, health threats

    Federal agencies have completed the first national study of lead, pesticides, and allergens in U.S. child-care facilities.

    By Ben Harder
  6. Animals

    Hawkmoths can still see colors at night

    For the first time, scientists have found detailed evidence than an animal—a hawkmoth—can see color by starlight.

    By Susan Milius
  7. Tech

    Resistancefree wire takes long jump

    A wire-making company has demonstrated a process that yields potentially inexpensive, high-current superconducting wires about 10 times longer than previous prototypes.

    By Peter Weiss
  8. Health & Medicine

    Study exonerates childhood vaccine

    A nationwide study in Denmark provides strong evidence that a childhood vaccine once blamed for some cases of autism plays no role in the development of that neurological disorder.

    By Ben Harder
  9. Astronomy

    Galactic cannibalism strikes again

    Astronomers have discovered the remains of a tiny galaxy that was swallowed by the galaxy Centaurus A only a few hundred million years ago.

    By Ron Cowen
  10. Earth

    El Niños came more often in Middle Ages

    Analyses of layered sediments from a South American lake suggest that the worldwide warm spells known as El Niños occurred more frequently about 1,200 years ago, when Europe was entering the Middle Ages, than they do today.

    By Sid Perkins
  11. Paleontology

    Forged fossil is a fish-eating fowl

    Detailed analyses of Archaeoraptor, a forged fossil once thought to be a missing link between dinosaurs and birds, reveal that the majority of that fake comes from an ancient, fish-eating bird.

    By Sid Perkins
  12. Planetary Science

    Martian Radiation: Giving off a faint X-ray glow

    Astronomers have for the first time taken an X-ray image of the Red Planet.

    By Ron Cowen