News
- Astronomy
Billions and billions of Earth-sized planets call Milky Way home
Using Kepler data, astronomers estimate that a sizeable fraction of the galaxy’s sunlike stars have Earth-sized planets that could support liquid water.
By Andrew Grant - Earth
Greenhouse gas injections may unleash earthquakes
Plans to pump carbon dioxide into the ground to mitigate climate change could create other problems.
By Beth Mole - Neuroscience
Brain enables sight without light
Sensory cross talk may underlie ability to see one’s own hand moving when it’s pitch black.
By Bruce Bower - Astronomy
Astronomers explain planets’ backward motion
Giant planets in distant orbits may be reversing the direction of their closer-in neighbors.
By Andrew Grant - Life
Steroids boost muscles for the long haul
Experiments in mice suggest that effects don’t end when doping does.
- Cosmology
Dark energy search gets murkier
Supernova measurements muddle scientists’ efforts to explain universe’s accelerating expansion.
- Health & Medicine
Exercise seems to limit bad falls in elderly
Regular exercise might limit broken bones due to bad falls in elderly people.
By Nathan Seppa - Life
Morel mushroom may grow crop of its own
A fungus could be a farmer itself, sowing, cultivating and harvesting bacteria.
By Susan Milius - Cosmology
Candidates for dark matter particles bite the dust
Most sensitive experiment yet determines that earlier findings were just artifacts.
By Andrew Grant - Health & Medicine
Mice lose the blues quickly with experimental drug
Studies in mice point to new, fast-acting antidepressants.
- Genetics
People’s genes welcome their microbes
In mice and humans, genetic variants seem to control the bacterial mix on and in bodies.
- Chemistry
Floating beads of water act as tiny test tubes
Chemists exploit pH and ion charge in superheated water drops to create nanoparticles.
By Beth Mole