News
- Animals
Pesticides Mess with Immunity: Double whammy promotes frog deformities
Agricultural pollutants may conspire with parasites to cause the epidemic of limb deformity that's sweeping through North America's frog populations.
- Anthropology
Evolution’s Surprise: Fossil find uproots our early ancestors
Researchers announced the discovery of a nearly complete fossil skull, along with jaw fragments and isolated teeth, from the earliest known member of the human evolutionary family, which lived in central Africa between 7 million and 6 million years ago.
- Planetary Science
Pristine fragments of asteroid breakup
Planetary scientists have for the first time precisely dated a collision that smashed an asteroid into fragments.
- Paleontology
Fossil leaves yield extinction clues
Analyses of fossil leaves provide more evidence that the mass extinctions that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago were sudden and probably brought about by an extraterrestrial impact.
- Health & Medicine
Dynamite discovery on nitroglycerin
Scientists have found a long-sought enzyme that may be behind nitroglycerin's dilation of blood vessels.
- Health & Medicine
Ginseng extract halts diabetes in mice
Extracts from the berry of the American ginseng plant counter obesity and insulin resistance in mice.
- Earth
Tomato compound repels mosquitos
New insect repellents based on a compound that contributes to the smell of crushed tomato leaves are under development.
- Materials Science
Molecular template makes nanoscale helix
Using ribbons made of organic molecules as minuscule templates, researchers have coaxed a semiconductor material into tiny helical coils.
- Health & Medicine
Watermelon red means lycopene rich
Watermelon is a far better source of the carotenoid lycopene than tomatoes are and at least as well absorbed by the body.
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Tough Tradeoff: Beetle brains show how sex shortens life
Brain surgery in beetles reveals yet another way that having sex can shorten life.
- Humans
Official Concern: U.N. weighs in on acrylamide toxicity
A United Nations panel concluded that, in fried, grilled, and baked foods, the formation of acrylamide, a carcinogen and nerve poison in rodents, constitutes "a serious problem."
- Paleontology
Into the Gap: Fossil find stands on its own four legs
A fossil originally misidentified as an ancient fish turns out to be the nearly intact remains of a four-limbed creature that lived during an extended period noted for its lack of fossils of land animals.
