News
- Earth
Backyard burning is recipe for dioxin
A few rural households burning trash may generate more toxic dioxins than a major, properly operated municipal incinerator.
- Planetary Science
Life on Europa: A possible energy source
New evidence supports the notion that Jupiter's moon Europa contains an ocean beneath its icy surface, and a planetary scientist has proposed a novel way that Europa could be getting the energy required to sustain life within that ocean.
- Animals
Why don’t racing horses fry their brains?
Lumpy sacs bulging out of a horse's auditory tubes may solve the mystery of how such an athletic animal keeps its brain from overheating during exercise.
- Earth
Major mood swing alters Pacific character
The temperature of the North Pacific Ocean has apparently veered from one extreme to the other—a change that could alter North American weather for the next decade or two.
- Health & Medicine
Meaty receptor helps tongue savor flavor
Scientists have identified a receptor protein in taste buds that recognizes the flavor of monosodium glutamate.
- Health & Medicine
New Compounds Inhibit HIV in Lab
Two new compounds uncovered by pharmaceutical scientists block integrase, an enzyme essential to the replication cycle of the virus that causes AIDS.
- Astronomy
X-ray observatory captures a rare supernova
Astronomers have obtained the first portrait of X-ray emission from a rare, so-called Ic supernova.
- Health & Medicine
Do-It-Yourself: Virus recreated from synthetic DNA
In an experiment with implications for bioterrorism, scientists have used poliovirus' widely known genetic sequence to synthesize that virus from DNA and other chemicals.
- Health & Medicine
Vaccine for All? Math model supports mass smallpox inoculation
Vaccinating an entire city in response to a smallpox terrorist attack would save thousands more lives than would quarantining infected people and vaccinating anyone they contacted.
- Tech
Voltage from the Bottom of the Sea: Ooze-dwelling microbes can power electronics
Some types of bacteria living in seafloor mud can generate enough electricity to power small electronic devices.
- Animals
Altruistic Sperm: Mouse gametes team up to power one winner
The sperm of wood mice hook together by the thousands to form high-speed teams racing toward an egg, even though only one of the pack will get the prize.
- Materials Science
Healing Wounds: Interactive dressing speeds the process
A new, easily prepared hydrogel material promotes more rapid wound healing in laboratory animals than do conventional dressings.
