News
- Life
Plant/animal hybrid proteins could help crops fend off diseases
Pikobodies, bioengineered proteins that are part plant and part animal (thanks, llamas), loan plant immune systems a uniquely animal trait: flexibility.
- Climate
Many Antarctic glaciers are hemorrhaging ice. This one is healing its cracks
Scientists have explored the recesses of an Antarctic glacier that is currently stable, helping improve predictions of the continent’s fate.
- Neuroscience
How meningitis-causing bacteria invade the brain
Microbes behind bacterial meningitis hijack pain-sensing nerve cells in the brain’s outer layers, disabling a key immune response, a mouse study shows.
- Archaeology
Ancient DNA unveils disparate fates of Ice Age hunter-gatherers in Europe
Ancient DNA unveils two regional populations that lived in what is now Europe and made similar tools but met different fates.
- Health & Medicine
Here’s how lemon juice may fend off kidney stones
Lemon nanoparticles slowed formation of kidney stones in rats. If the sacs work the same way in people, they could help prevent the painful crystals.
- Paleontology
The oldest known pollen-carrying insects lived about 280 million years ago
Pollen stuck to fossils of earwig-like Tillyardembia pushes back the earliest record of potential insect pollinators by about 120 million years.
- Animals
The fastest claw in the sea belongs to young snapping shrimp
When juveniles snap their claws shut to create imploding bubbles, they create the fastest accelerating underwater movements of any reusable body part.
- Climate
An incendiary form of lightning may surge under climate change
Relatively long-lived lightning strikes are the most likely to spark wildfires and may become more common as the climate warms.
- Health & Medicine
Medicated eye drops may delay nearsightedness in children
Myopia, or nearsightedness, is a growing global health threat. But a Hong Kong study found that medicated eye drops may delay its onset in children.
- Humans
A new biomaterial heals heart attack damage in animals. Humans could be next
If used right after a heart attack, this intravenously delivered biomaterial can preserve cardiac function. It could also treat traumatic brain injury.
- Health & Medicine
A gel cocktail uses the body’s sugars to ‘grow’ electrodes in living fish
A chemical reaction with the body’s own sugars turned a gel cocktail into a conducting material inside zebrafish brains, hearts and tail fins.
- Astronomy
The Milky Way may be spawning many more stars than astronomers had thought
Glowing radioactive debris from massive stars indicates our galaxy mints 10 to 20 new stars a year — double to quadruple the standard number.
