News
- Earth
Ancient tree rings reveal past climate
Using tree-ring analysis, an international team of researchers has reconstructed the earliest record of annual climate variation.
By Linda Wang - Health & Medicine
Urine tests can foretell bladder cancers
U.S. and Chinese researchers find that two unconventional urine tests can often predict when a person is developing bladder cancer even before tumors appear.
By Nathan Seppa - Astronomy
Starry Data Support Revved-Up Cosmos
Astronomers have confirmed one of the weirdest properties of the universe: Some mysterious force is pushing galaxies apart at a faster and faster rate.
By Ron Cowen -
Dyslexia gets a break in Italy
Although dyslexia involves a common disruption of reading-related brain activity, the reading performance of people with dyslexia appears to improve if they use a language that has consistent spelling rules.
By Bruce Bower -
Depression linked to heart deaths
In a community sample, people suffering from moderate to severe depression exhibited an elevated death rate from heart disease over a 4-year study period, even if they had no discernable heart disease to begin with.
By Bruce Bower -
Gene found for chloroplast movement
Scientists have found the gene that directs chloroplasts to dance out of a cell's shaded edges to soak up the sun or back into that shade when the light is too intense.
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DNA-cutting enzyme looks like scissors
One type of restriction enzyme not only cuts a DNA strand but also looks like a pair of scissors.
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Distressed amoebas can call for help
Amoebas having trouble dividing produce a chemical signal that draws other amoebas to the scene.
- Earth
POPs in the butter
Governments may be able to monitor trends in the release and transport of persistent organic pollutants by sampling butter.
By Janet Raloff - Earth
Leaden calcium supplements
Consuming calcium along with lead limits, and may prevent, the body's absorption of the toxicant.
By Janet Raloff -
Did males get bigger or females smaller?
It's time to stop assuming that standard gender differences in birds come from males getting bigger rather than from females getting smaller.
By Susan Milius - Physics
Frigid ‘dynamite’ assembles into superatom
Although it's now the fifth element to be made into the strange state of ultracold matter known as Bose-Einstein condensate, helium may prove to be the most revealing so far because of unusually high energies within the newly condensed atoms.
By Peter Weiss