News
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Trashed proteins may help immune system
Up to 30 percent of a cell's proteins get recycled as soon as they roll off the cellular assembly line.
By John Travis -
Earth
Moderate flows help carve rivers
Measurements of erosion in a rocky river channel in Taiwan suggest that the day-to-day flow of water accounts for more rock wear there than occasional catastrophic floods do.
By Sid Perkins -
Gene found for big, firm sheep rumps
Scientists have found the gene that gives sheep unusually big, muscular bottoms.
By Susan Milius -
Astronomy
Are solar eruptions triggered a loopy way?
Astronomers have identified a new solar mechanism that may explain some coronal mass ejections.
By Ron Cowen -
Health & Medicine
Panel ups RDAs for some antioxidants
An Institute of Medicine panel reported that dietary antioxidants such as vitamins A and E can limit cellular damage from free radicals but warned that studies in people have never adequately established a direct connection between antioxidant consumption and prevention of chronic disease.
By Janet Raloff -
Colossal study shows amphibian woes
The largest amphibian data set ever crunched—936 populations in 37 countries—confirms global declines.
By Susan Milius -
Archaeology
Early New World Settlers Rise in East
New evidence supports the view that people occupied a site in coastal Virginia at least 15,000 years ago.
By Bruce Bower -
Health & Medicine
Gene expression helps classify cancers
Using gene chips to study the activity of thousands of genes simultaneously, researchers showed that a common cancer of white blood cells—diffuse large B-cell lymphoma—is in fact two distinct diseases.
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Health & Medicine
Antacids for asthma sufferers?
People with asthma have more acidic lungs than do people who don't have the disease, a finding that may prompt the development of novel asthma treatments aimed at restoring the normal pH value of the lungs.
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Health & Medicine
Treating one disease caused another
Egypt's public health service inadvertently spread hepatitis C while treating patients for schistosomiasis, a common parasitic disease, with injections of antischistomal medications.
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One-gene change makes mice neurotic
Researchers have engineered a strain of stressed-out mice by knocking out one gene.
By Susan Milius -
Good guys and bad guys share tactics
A microbial odd couple—the brucellosis pathogen and a nitrogen-fixer for plants—need the same gene to settle into their hosts long-term.
By Susan Milius