News
- Planetary Science
Tryst in space: Craft, asteroid rendezvous
On Valentine's Day, the NEAR spacecraft cozied up to the asteroid 433 Eros, becoming the first craft to orbit a tiny body.
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Fly naps inspire dreams of sleep genetics
Researchers have discovered a sleep-like state in the fruit fly.
- Physics
Melting nuclei re-create Big Bang broth
The seething primordial matter that existed in the first microseconds after the Big Bang may have briefly reappeared in fireballs created at a European particle accelerator.
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Migration may reawaken Lyme disease
Lyme disease can hide in healthy-looking birds until the stress of migration drives it into a potentially infectious state.
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Two Meningitis Bacteria Yield Genomes
Scientists have sequenced all the genes of two strains of a bacterium that causes meningitis, which may lead to the development of a much-needed vaccine
- Health & Medicine
Budding Tastes: Higher blood pressure in newborns links to salt preference
Babies who tolerate a salty flavor have higher blood pressure on average than their less tolerant counterparts do.
- Earth
Nature’s Own: Ocean yields gases that had seemed humanmade
Chemical analyses of seawater provide the first direct evidence that the ocean may be a significant source of certain atmospheric gases that scientists had previously assumed to be produced primarily by industrial activity.
- Astronomy
X-Ray Chaos: Violence shows itself in a nearby galaxy
New X-ray observations provide additional evidence that Centaurus A, the nearest radio-wave-emitting galaxy to Earth that has a supermassive black hole, is a maelstrom of violence.
- Earth
Killer Cocktails: Drug mixes threaten aquatic ecosystems
Trace amounts of pharmaceutical drugs in waterways may work together to deform and kill native microscopic organisms.
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Not a Turn-On: Alleged X chromosome activator may be a dud
A gene that helps regulate X chromosome activity in mice doesn't work in people.
- Materials Science
Spinning Fine Threads: Silkworms coerced to make better silk
The caterpillars that spin commercial silk can make tougher or more elastic threads, depending on how fast they're forced to spin.
- Ecosystems
Tougher Weeds? Borrowed gene helps wild sunflower
Feeding concerns about developing superweeds, a test of sunflowers shows for the first time that a biologically engineered gene moving from a crop can give an advantage to wild relatives under naturalistic conditions.
