News
- Paleontology
Telltale Dino Heart Hints at Warm Blood
A recently discovered fossil dinosaur heart is more like the heart of birds and mammals than that of crocodiles, providing further evidence that dinosaurs may have been warm-blooded.
- Chemistry
Hot Spuds: Golden path to acrylamide in food
The browning reaction that imparts flavor to french fries and breads also creates acrylamide, an animal carcinogen.
- Materials Science
Molecular Separations: New artificial sieve traps molecules
Researchers have created a metal-laced organic solid that acts as a sieve with nanosize pores for capturing molecules.
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Making Mice Mellow: Rodents yield clues to improved anxiety drugs
Mice bred to lack a gene for a certain enzyme exhibit reduced anxiety and greater curiosity in stressful laboratory tasks, suggesting a possible new avenue of research into anti-anxiety medications.
- Tech
Solar Surgery: Sunlight acts like laser
By channeling sunlight down a fiber optic cable, scientists have produced laserlike beams that can burn tumors off major organs.
- Physics
Prize honors physicist with conscience
Physicist-author Freeman J. Dyson received the Templeton prize for originality in advancing religious understanding.
- Physics
Four ions mingle in quantum chorus
A new way to produce mysterious quantum correlations among particles ups the record to four particles linked, or entangled, and opens the door to correlating many more particles on cue, a prerequisite for making quantum computers.
- Chemistry
Sweet tooth is in the genes
Taste researchers have narrowed the search for the sweet tooth gene, at least in mice, to a 100-gene region.
- Chemistry
Birth control for male cockroaches
Scientists have discovered a gene in German cockroaches that may lead to a new type of insect control—contraception for male cockroaches.
- Chemistry
Coming up roses in scent research
Aroma chemists have discovered a carotenoid-processing enzyme that makes the chemicals that give rose oil its smell.
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Milestones for Malaria: Parasite, mosquito genes decoded
Unraveling the DNA of a malaria-causing parasite and of a mosquito that carries it may suggest new ways to combat the deadly disease.
- Chemistry
Nutty and fungi-ble taxol sources
The active ingredient in the anticancer drug taxol has turned up in hazelnuts and fungi.
