News
-
Health & Medicine
Boosting Boron Could Be Healthful
Largely ignored so far, dietary boron may play important roles in preventing diseases such as arthritis and prostate cancer.
By Janet Raloff -
Chemistry
Leaden news for city neighborhoods
Researchers have identified more than 400 urban sites that may be highly contaminated with lead but had remained unknown to authorities for decades.
-
Chemistry
Would you like wheat with that burger?
Researchers have used wheat to make a biodegradable hamburger carton.
-
Gene therapy won’t replace Viagra—yet
Scientists are making progress toward inserting genes to cure impotence temporarily.
By Janet Raloff -
Looking for osteoporosis in spit
A dentist has found three compounds in saliva that could be used to gauge bone loss.
By Janet Raloff -
Astronomy
Searching for a lost craft
A recent Department of Defense analysis of images of the Red Planet may have located a lost spacecraft on Mars, but NASA says the images could just be electronic noise.
By Ron Cowen -
Astronomy
Probes find a new plume on Io
Two spacecraft jointly eyeing Jupiter's moon Io, the most volcanically active body in the solar system, have spotted a towering new plume.
By Ron Cowen -
Earth
Lasers show atmosphere differs from models
New observations of the middle and upper atmosphere over Earth's polar regions may require scientists to revamp their mathematical models of temperature and other environmental conditions at high altitudes.
By Sid Perkins -
Tapeworms tell tales of deeper human past
A new analysis of tapeworm history suggests that people have been wrong about where we picked up pests: It was not domestication of cattle and pigs but increased meat eating in Africa.
By Susan Milius -
Health & Medicine
Immune cells rush to gut in food allergy
In mice, allergic reactions to food coincide with an accumulation of white blood cells called eosinophils in the small intestine.
By Nathan Seppa -
Tech
Optical biopsy hunts would-be cancers
A new optical tool allows physicians to scout for precancerous tissue by analyzing the fluorescent responses of cells when light is shone on them.
By Janet Raloff -
Astronomy
A comet’s odd orbit hints at hidden planet
Far beyond the solar system's nine known planets, a body as massive as Mars may once have been part of our planetary system, and it might still be there.
By Ron Cowen