News

  1. Genetics

    Bromine found to be essential to animal life

    Fruit flies deprived of the element bromine can’t make normal connective tissue that supports cells and either don’t hatch or die as larvae.

    By Tina Hesman Saey
  2. Life

    Hatcheries’ metal can disrupt steelhead magnetic sense

    Growing up in magnetic fields distorted by pipes and electronics confounds young fish’s inherited map sense.

    By Susan Milius
  3. Health & Medicine

    Early malnutrition may impair infants’ mix of gut microbes

    Babies’ gut microbiomes fail to fully recover even after fending off bouts with malnutrition.

    By Nathan Seppa
  4. Astronomy

    Rocky, overweight planet shakes up theories

    Kepler-10c is a rocky exoplanet 17 times as massive as Earth, and astronomers are puzzled as to how it formed.

    By Christopher Crockett
  5. Health & Medicine

    Health risks of e-cigarettes emerge

    Research uncovers a growing list of chemicals that end up in an e-cigarette user’s lungs, and one study finds that an e-cigarette’s vapors can increase the virulence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

    By Janet Raloff
  6. Chemistry

    Bacteria take plants to biofuel in one step

    Engineered bacterium singlehandedly dismantles tough switchgrass molecules, making sugars that it ferments to make ethanol.

    By Beth Mole
  7. Psychology

    Stereotypes might make ‘female’ hurricanes deadlier

    Precautions may get shelved by those in the path of severe storms with feminine names, leading some to suggest that storms should be named after animals.

    By Bruce Bower
  8. Health & Medicine

    Brain’s support cells play role in hunger

    Once considered just helpers for neurons, astrocytes sense the hormone leptin and can change mice’s appetites.

    By Laura Sanders
  9. Life

    Drug candidate takes new aim at MERS

    An experimental drug that shuts down construction of virus-making factories could become a new weapon against MERS.

    By Meghan Rosen
  10. Tech

    Lasers heal damaged rodent teeth

    Handheld laser spurs stem cells into action, regrowing dentin in drilled teeth.

    By Meghan Rosen
  11. Archaeology

    First pants worn by horse riders 3,000 years ago

    A new study indicates horse-riding Asians wove and wore wool trousers by around 3,000 years ago.

    By Bruce Bower
  12. Animals

    Reef fish get riled when intruders glow red

    A male fairy wrasse gets feisty when he can see a rival’s colorful fluorescent patches.

    By Susan Milius