News
- Earth
Pump up a plateau to make a monsoon
Computer models show that the onset and strengthening of Asian monsoons over the past 8 million to 9 million years are strongly linked to various stages in the uplift of the Tibetan plateau.
- Earth
Pacific Northwest stirred, not shaken
Residents of the Pacific Northwest escaped the wrath of a magnitude 6.7 earthquake in the summer of 1999 because the ground movement of 20 centimeters along a deep fault occurred over a period of 6 to 15 days, not all at once.
- Physics
Lead blocks may catch nuclear killer
New measurements of neutron bursts from blocks of lead may help researchers solve a decades-old cosmic whodunit.
- Physics
Maybe this watched pot already boiled
Researchers smashing nuclei in hopes of producing a primordial state of matter called the quark-gluon plasma may have already made the stuff without realizing it.
- Health & Medicine
Death of a theory
Three separate analyses of oral polio vaccine used in the 1950s in Africa deflate the theory that such a vaccine could have ignited the AIDS epidemic by containing virus-infected chimpanzee cells.
- Health & Medicine
Gene therapy cures blindness in dogs
Gene therapy to replace a defective RPE65 gene succeeds in bringing sight to three blind dogs, suggesting such therapy might reverse Leber congenital amauosis, a rare condition in which children are blind from birth.
- Health & Medicine
New anthrax treatment works in rats
By distorting a protein in the toxin that makes the anthrax bacterium deadly, scientists have discovered a promising way to treat the disease and possibly even to prevent it with a vaccine.
- Health & Medicine
Tamoxifen dilates arteries in men
The breast cancer drug tamoxifen can widen a narrowed coronary artery in men with heart problems.
- Health & Medicine
Long-term ecstasy use impairs memory
Extended use of the illicit drug called MDMA or ecstasy exacerbated memory problems in users aged 17 to 31, none of whom reported alcohol dependence.
- Health & Medicine
Peptide puts mouse arthritis out of joint
A compound called vasointestinal peptide, which binds to immune system T cells and macrophages, thwarts arthritis in mice.
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Dolphins may seek selves in mirror images
Dolphins apparently recognize their own reflections.
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For some birds, Mr. Wrong can be alright
What looks like the ultimate bad choice in romance—a mate from a different species—in some conditions may not be so dumb after all.
