News
- Materials Science
What the mail must go through
Mail irradiation in Washington, D.C. is damaging valuable objects and documents intended for scientific study or archiving at the Smithsonian, the White House, and other government organizations.
- Astronomy
An image to relish
The Hubble Space Telescope has captured a high-resolution image of an object that looks like a giant hamburger.
- Computing
Writing faster with your eyes
A new method for gaze-operated, hands-free text entry is faster and more accurate than using an on-screen keyboard.
- Health & Medicine
Lost and found
Researchers have shown that a drug may shepherd a mutated protein—gone astray in people with cystic fibrosis—into its proper place.
- Health & Medicine
Processing corn boosts antioxidants
Cooking sweet corn increases its disease-fighting antioxidant activity, despite decreasing its vitamin C content.
- Planetary Science
It’s only a sharper moon
Astronomers have taken what appears to be the sharpest image of the moon ever recorded from Earth.
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All about Me: Left brain may shine spotlight on self
Experiments with a split-brain patient suggest that left-hemisphere structures contribute to the conscious understanding of oneself.
- Animals
What’s the Mane Point? Foes and females both have role
The condition of a lion's mane apparently advertises high-quality mates to picky females and wards off male adversaries.
- Materials Science
A Cut above the Ordinary: Low-tech machining yields coveted nanostructure
A new finding that machining of metals imparts a hard, fine-grained structure to turnings and other scraps may lead to less costly but more durable parts for cars and other applications.
- Physics
Peer Pressure in Numbers: Physicists model the power of social sway
A mathematical model of peer-influenced behavior may help explain some unexpected patterns that have been observed in financial data and bird populations.
- Planetary Science
Lost in Space: Comet mission appears to have broken apart
A spacecraft that had just begun its journey to two comets has fallen silent and may have broken apart.
- Earth
Global Impact: Space object may have spread debris worldwide
Sediments laid down about 3.47 billion years ago in what are now western Australia and eastern South Africa contain remnants of what may have been an extraterrestrial-object impact large enough to disperse debris over the entire planet.
