News
- Animals
Pygmy blue whales deepen their moans
Sri Lankan pygmy blue whales are tweaking their calls — making one part deeper and keeping another part the same — but scientists can’t say why. The finding injects a new wrinkle in theories about blue whale calls.
- Genetics
Ancient DNA tells of two origins for dogs
Genetic analysis of an ancient Irish mutt reveals complicated history of dog domestication.
- Planetary Science
Jupiter’s stormy weather no tempest in teapot
New radio observations reveal how ammonia moves about beneath Jupiter’s clouds and provide a sneak peek at what NASA’s Juno mission will learn later this year.
- Archaeology
Earliest evidence of fire making in Europe found
Clues to Stone Age fire making surface in a Spanish cave.
- Life
Jumping gene turned peppered moths the color of soot
A single gene is behind some of the most famous examples of natural selection.
- Earth
Plate tectonics just a stage in Earth’s life cycle
Plate tectonics is just a phase in a planet’s lifetime between conditions that are too hot or too cold for the planet-churning mechanism, new simulations suggest.
- Neuroscience
Morphine may make pain last longer
Instead of busting pain, morphine lengthened the duration of pain in rats with a nerve injury.
- Life
Bacteria resistant to last-resort antibiotic appears in U.S.
For the first time in the United States, scientists have reported a patient infected with a strain of bacteria carrying the gene mrc-1, making it resistant to the last-ditch antibiotic colistin.
- Computing
New technique produces real randomness
A new technique makes it easier for computers to roll the dice.
- Quantum Physics
Schrödinger’s cat now dead and alive in two boxes at once
The living-dead feline has been split in two, using a system of microwaves inside superconducting cavities.
- Climate
Climate-cooling aerosols can form from tree vapors
Climate-cooling, cloud-seeding aerosols can form in the atmosphere without the sulfuric acid spewed from fossil fuel burning, new research suggests.
- Neuroscience
Alzheimer’s culprit may fight other diseases
A notorious Alzheimer’s villain may help bust microbes.
