News
- Animals
Meerkat pups grow fatter with extra adults
Meerkat pups growing up in large, cooperative groups are heftier because there are more adults to entreat for food.
- Anthropology
Isotopes reveal sources of ancient timbers
Isotopic analysis of architectural timbers from ancient dwellings in the U.S. Southwest has shown from which distant forests the massive logs came.
- Astronomy
Probe’s comet encounter yields close-ups
A crippled NASA probe successfully navigated close enough to Comet Borrelly to capture and beam home black-and-white and infared images of its nucleus and new data about ions and other particles that radiate from it.
- Physics
Atomic Crowds Tied by Quantum Thread
Quantum states of record numbers of atoms—entire atom clouds—get blended together by physicists wielding a new, relatively simple technique in quantum telecommunications and computing.
- Astronomy
After a failure, a new craft to sail
Despite the July 20 failure of its mission to test the unfurling of a solar sail in a suborbital trajectory, the Planetary Society announced plans in late August to conduct a second test of a sail-propelled craft.
- Astronomy
A meteorite’s pristine origins
A rare, carbon-rich meteorite that fell into a frozen Canadian lake last year ranks as the most pristine of such specimens ever found.
- Astronomy
Gravity’s lens: Finding a sextet of images
Astronomers have for the first time found a gravitational lens in which the image of a distant galaxy has been split into six distinct images.
- Astronomy
Gravity’s lens: Finding a dim cluster
Relying solely on a gravitational mirage rather than visible images, astronomers have discovered a previously unknown cluster of galaxies and measured its distance from Earth.
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Youthful nicotine addiction may be growing
Although the rate of daily cigarette smoking has declined among teenagers and young adults over the past 20 years, the number of smokers in this age range who develop nicotine dependence has risen dramatically.
- Health & Medicine
Alcohol on your breath need not be all bad
Drugs such as insulin may be delivered by inhaling mists of medicine-containing alcohol.
- Animals
Shhh! Is that scrape a caterpillar scrap?
A series of staged conflicts reveals the first known acoustic duels in caterpillars.
- Health & Medicine
Drugs slow diabetes patients’ kidney damage
Two drugs normally prescribed for high blood pressure help forestall kidney damage in people with type 2, or adult-onset, diabetes.
