News
- Agriculture
Journal disowns transgene report
The journal Nature now says it shouldn't have published a report that genetically engineered corn is leaking exotic genes into the traditional maize crops of Mexico.
By Susan Milius - Materials Science
A Field of Diminutive Daisies
Researchers have created tiny daisies as a demonstration of a new technique that creates three-dimensional structures from carbon nanotubes.
- Health & Medicine
Blood Vessel Poisoning: Arsenic narrows artery that feeds brain
New research suggests that drinking arsenic-laden water can produce dangerous narrowing in the carotid artery, which channels blood through the neck to the brain.
By Ben Harder - Health & Medicine
Scrambled Drugs: Transgenic chickens could lay golden eggs
Scientists have created transgenic chickens able to produce foreign proteins—and, potentially, pharmaceuticals—in their eggs.
- Animals
Lamprey Allure: Females rush to males’ bile acid
An unusual sex attractant has turned up in an analysis of sea lampreys, and it may inspire new ways to defend the Great Lakes against invasive species.
By Susan Milius -
Night Patrol for Tired Cops: Police lose sleep over workday hassles
A large proportion of big-city police officers suffers from insomnia and other serious sleep problems that stem from chronic work stress.
By Bruce Bower - Materials Science
Osmium is Forever: Rare metal’s strength humbles mighty diamond’s
A new route to materials harder than diamond may have opened with the surprising finding that the rare metal osmium resists compression better than diamond does.
By Peter Weiss -
Hot Cereal: Rice reveals bumper crop of genes
Two research groups have identified all the genes in rice, the world's most important crop.
By John Travis - Archaeology
New World hunters get a reprieve
New radiocarbon evidence indicates that, beginning around 11,000 years ago, human hunters contributed to North American mammal extinctions that had already been triggered by pronounced climate shifts.
By Bruce Bower - Archaeology
Stone Age Siberians move up in time
Siberian sites previously thought to have been bases for early human excursions into North America may only date to about 11,300 years ago, when people have traditionally been assumed to have first reached Alaska.
By Bruce Bower - Earth
Satellites discover new Arctic islands
Danish researchers analyzing satellite observations of remote Tobias Island, discovered in 1993 off the northeastern coast of Greenland, have stumbled upon a new group of small islands nearby.
By Sid Perkins - Health & Medicine
A tasty discovery about the tongue
Scientists can now explain how the tongue tastes the amino acids in proteins.
By John Travis