News
- Life
Jiminy Cricket! Pollinator caught in the act
Using night-vision cameras, scientists have documented the first example of cricket pollination of an orchid and discovered a new species of the insect on the island of Réunion.
- Earth
Scientists scramble to analyze Haiti quake
Teams work to understand and model what could happen next.
- Physics
Just a stone’s throw forms a supersonic jet
Objects hitting water can move air at the speed of sound.
- Humans
Zeus’ altar of ashes
News from the Archaeological Institute of America's annual meeting in Anaheim, Calif.
By Bruce Bower - Humans
Graffiti on the walls in Pompeii
News from the Archaeological Institute of America's annual meeting in Anaheim, Calif.
By Bruce Bower - Humans
Copenhagen climate summit yields ‘real deal’ to limit greenhouse gases
Nonbinding accord still needs beefing up, negotiators agree.
By Janet Raloff -
- Psychology
Newborns nurse long-term memories of smells
Newborn babies readily link specific scents to breast-feeding and favor those smells as toddlers.
By Bruce Bower - Life
Alligators breathe like birds
Tricky measurements of flow reveal that air moves through the animal in one direction.
- Climate
Acidifying ocean may stifle phytoplankton
Chemical changes in seawater make a key nutrient less available to these organisms.
By Sid Perkins - Life
Soybean genome turns out to be soysoybeanbean
The plant's newly sequenced genetic blueprint includes a surprising number of spare copies.
By Susan Milius - Space
Supernova winds blow galaxies into shape
A new simulation that combines supernova winds with the mysterious material known as cold dark matter almost perfectly accounts for the structure of dwarf galaxies in nearby reaches of the universe.
By Ron Cowen