News

Physics

Electrical superball pulls itself together

A strong electric field can drive tiny particles of a superconductor to bind themselves together into a remarkably sturdy ball.

Health & Medicine

Learning from leprosy’s nerve damage

The bacterium that causes leprosy directly damages a protective sheathing around many nerve cells.

Ecosystems

Famine reveals incredible shrinking iguanas

Marine iguanas in the Galápagos Islands are the first vertebrates known to reduce their size during a food shortage and then regrow to their original body lengths.

Environment

Old thermometers pose new problems

Though health groups advocate getting mercury thermometers out of the home, obtaining sound advice on how to dispose of the thermometers can be problematic.

Earth

Algae Turn Fish into a Lethal Lunch

Scientists demonstrated that some marine mammals have died from eating fish tainted with a neurotoxic diatom.

Earth

Most oil enters sea from nonaccidents

Nearly all of the oil entering the marine environment traces not to accidents but to natural seeps and human activities where releases are intentional.

Physics

Matter waves: Be fruitful and multiply

For the first time, physicists induced atoms to amplify a selected matter wave in a manner analogous to a cascade of photons amplifying the characteristic electromagnetic wave of an optical laser.

Materials Science

Impurity clouds from all sides now

For the first time, scientists have obtained detailed, three-dimensional images of line defects in steel.

Materials Science

Small-scale glues stick to surfaces

Tailored molecular glues can connect together tiny particles for nanotechnology applications.

Health & Medicine

The brew for a slimmer you

Green tea contains a compound that triggers the body to burn more fat.