News
- Animals
Wasp Painting: Do insects know each other’s faces?
A researcher who dabbed tiny stripes on the faces and abdomens of paper wasps says that she's found the first evidence that the insects can recognize individuals by their markings.
- Health & Medicine
Kill or Be Killed: Tumor protein offs patrolling immune cells
Many human cancers may evade surveillance by exploiting a protein normally found on certain immune cells.
- Health & Medicine
Rewiring Job: Drug spurs nerve growth in stroke-damaged brains
The natural compound inosine spurs nerve reconnection in rats that have suffered the loss of blood to parts of the brain, suggesting inosine might help people recover from a stroke.
- Paleontology
Rain Forest Primeval? Colorado fossils show unexpected diversity
The size, shape, and riotous variety of fossil leaves unearthed at a site in central Colorado suggest that the region may have been covered with one of the world's first tropical rain forests just 1.4 million years after the demise of the dinosaurs.
- Physics
U.S. time now flows from atom fountain
The United States has switched to the atomic fountain clock, which sets itself according to the resonant frequency of rising and falling balls of cold cesium.
- Physics
Magnets trap neutrons for a lifetime
A new device that uses magnets to trap neutrons may enable physicists to measure more precisely how quickly free neutrons decay, a time period with implications for understanding both the weak force and the early universe.
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Social thinking in schizophrenia
Training that fosters thinking skills in social situations may improve attention, memory, and social skills of people with schizophrenia.
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Readers’ brains go native
Brain functions linked to reading reflect cultural differences in spelling systems.
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Obesity hormone tackles wound healing
The hormone leptin, which seems to have many roles in the body including regulating fat storage, may speed the healing of wounds.
- Physics
Lasers act on cue in electron billiards
Electrons torn from atoms by a laser beam can shoot back into the atom and knock loose other electrons like balls in a billiard game, a finding that may have applications in nuclear fusion, particle acceleration, and fundamental physics experiments.
- Chemistry
Powerful explosive blasts onto scene
Researchers have synthesized what could be the most powerful nonnuclear explosive known.
- Animals
Butterfly ears suggest a bat influence
Researchers have found the first bat-detecting ear in a butterfly and suggest that the threat of bats triggered the evolution of some moths into butterflies.
