News
- Physics
In a squeeze, nitrogen gets chunky
Remarkable already for being a semiconductor and, perhaps, an explosive, a new, solid form of nitrogen made by crushing the ordinary gas to the highest pressures ever also stands out because it continues to survive when the pressure is released.
By Peter Weiss - Physics
Electrons trip on tiny semiconductor steps
A first glimpse of how a semiconductor's surface alters electrons' magnetic fields, or spins, suggests that tiny steps in the surfaces are tripping up efforts to create so-called spintronics circuits from semiconductors.
By Peter Weiss - Health & Medicine
Genetic flaw found in painful gut disease
Scientists have discovered a genetic mutation that occurs in people with Crohn's disease, a digestive disorder that attacks the intestines.
By Nathan Seppa -
Slave-making ants get rough in New York
The whole ant slave-making business turns more violent in New York than in West Virginia, even though it features the same species.
By Susan Milius - Health & Medicine
Poliovirus slaughters brain tumors in mice
Scientists have altered a live polio virus, inducing it to target and kill brain tumor cells without causing polio.
- Chemistry
Designer surface proves deadly to bacteria
Researchers have made a surface coating that kills bacteria on contact in a novel way.
- Health & Medicine
Antibiotic resistance is coming to dinner
Foods tainted with bacteria that antibiotics don't kill are a recipe for more serious—even lethal—infections.
By Janet Raloff -
Look on the bright side and survive longer
People who, as young adults, describe their lives using a variety of terms for positive emotions live substantially longer than those who express little positive emotion, according to a long-term study of Catholic nuns.
By Bruce Bower - Paleontology
Early Mammal’s Jaw Lost Its Groove
A tiny fossil skull found in 195-million-year-old Chinese sediments provides evidence that crucial features of mammal anatomy evolved more than 45 million years earlier than previously thought.
By Sid Perkins - Materials Science
Nanotubes form dense transistor array
Researchers have made an array of transistors out of carbon nanotubes.
- Materials Science
Future brightens for carbon nanotubes
Researchers have made a lightbulb that depends on carbon nanotubes for its glow.
- Health & Medicine
Gender bias: Stroke after heart surgery
Women are more likely than men to suffer strokes after heart surgery.