News

  1. Health & Medicine

    Jarring Result: Extreme biking can hurt men’s fertility

    Men who maintain grueling mountain-bicycling programs are apt to have lower sperm counts than nonbikers are.

    By Nathan Seppa
  2. Anthropology

    Script Delivery: New World writing takes disputed turn

    Researchers announced, to considerable controversy, that inscriptions found on artifacts at an Olmec site in southeastern Mexico represented the earliest known writing system in the Americas.

    By Bruce Bower

  3. Debate over Alzheimer’s enzyme flares up

    Scientists continue to tussle over the identity of an enzyme implicated in Alzheimer's disease.

    By John Travis
  4. Earth

    Algal bloom is smothering Florida coral

    The anomalous growth of a native alga—now blanketing the seabed in a huge swath off the southern coast of Florida—points to overfertilization with upwelling sewage.

    By Janet Raloff

  5. Cancer patients accentuate the positive

    Group therapy that promotes positive types of personal growth in breast cancer patients may also result in beneficial physiological changes.

    By Bruce Bower
  6. Agriculture

    Bt corn variety OK for black swallowtails

    The first published field study of butterflies and genetically altered corn finds no harm to black swallowtail caterpillars from a common corn variety.

    By Susan Milius
  7. Health & Medicine

    Keeping the beat

    Muscle cells taken from embryonic rats and put into an adult rat's heart can transmit the electric signals that govern the heartbeat.

    By Damaris Christensen
  8. Tech

    Robotic heart surgery

    By using robotic rather than conventional open-heart techniques, doctors can perform heart surgery with smaller incisions, giving patients less pain and speeding recovery.

    By Damaris Christensen
  9. Health & Medicine

    Enzyme Shortage May Lead to Lupus

    Without the enzyme DNase I, mice are vulnerable to symptoms of lupus, a debilitating autoimmune disease.

    By Nathan Seppa
  10. Health & Medicine

    Cycling and surgery have similar effect

    Among people with chest pain because of clogged heart arteries, regular exercise on a stationary bike reduced symptoms better than surgery did.

    By Damaris Christensen
  11. Health & Medicine

    A hot new therapy?

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

    By Damaris Christensen
  12. 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