News
- Chemistry
How to bug bugs
New insights on how insect repellents work could eventually help scientists prevent the transmission of diseases like malaria.
- Chemistry
Tracking bird flu one poop at a time
Mice can sniff out duck droppings laced with the virus.
- Chemistry
Deep-sea oil plume goes missing
Controversy arises over whether bacteria have completely gobbled oil up.
By Janet Raloff - Health & Medicine
New gel seals wounds fast
A synthetic material revs up blood clotting at low cost.
- Health & Medicine
Amphetamine abusers face blood vessel risk
The odds of sustaining aorta damage are more than tripled in people who abuse or are dependent on amphetamines, a review of hospital records finds.
By Nathan Seppa - Space
Solar system older than estimated
A meteorite’s age has pushed back the estimated time of the solar system’s formation by almost 2 million years.
- Life
‘Whispering’ gives bats the drop on prey
A stealth approach to echolocation appears to be adaptive for catching eared moths.
By Susan Milius - Computing
Going viral takes a posse, not an army
Quality of followers, not quantity, determines which tweets will fly
- Earth
Most BP oil still pollutes the Gulf, scientists conclude
Below the surface, plumes of oil are proving slow to disperse and break down.
By Janet Raloff - Space
Moon shrinks
New pictures expand evidence of the moon’s shrinkage over the past billion years.
- Plants
Chlorophyll gets an ‘f’
New variety of photosynthetic pigment is the first to be discovered in 60 years
- Planetary Science
Worldwide slowdown in plant carbon uptake
A decade of droughts has stifled the increasing growth of terrestrial vegetation.
By Sid Perkins