News
- Life
No rest for weary fruit flies
Fruit flies with insomnia may help researchers track genetic factors that lead to the sleep disorder.
- Climate
Cultivation changed monsoon in Asia
The loss of forests in India, China during the 1700s led to a decline in monsoon precipitation.
By Sid Perkins - Space
Astrometry nabs an exoplanet
long-proposed method of searching for extrasolar planets has finally discovered one — a body six times heavier than Jupiter that orbits a dwarf star 20 light-years from Earth.
By Ron Cowen - Tech
Earliest known sound recordings revealed
Researchers unveil imprints made 20 years before Edison invented phonograph.
By Ron Cowen - Life
Phony fighters discovered among fig wasps
A newly discovered species of fig wasp has a fraction of dishonest guys with big mouthparts.
By Susan Milius - Life
Engineered DNA counts it out
Scientists create a biological system that uses the genetic code to tally up molecular events.
- Animals
Extensive toolkits give chimps a taste of honey
Chimps living in central Africa’s dense forests make and use complex sets of tools to gather honey from beehives, further narrowing the gap between the way humans and chimps use tools.
By Bruce Bower - Chemistry
Deadly mushroom toxin exposed
Researchers have isolated and identified a muscle-destroying compound in some mushrooms.
- Earth
Phytoliths as climate clues
Tiny silica plant structures from soil could track temperature changes.
By Sid Perkins - Earth
Bricks, mortar and magnetism
Medieval French castle, churches yield new data about Earth’s changing magnetic field.
By Sid Perkins - Life
Four marmosets are first transgenic primates
Scientists in Japan have successfully introduced a foreign gene into a primate species for the first time, opening a new avenue for modeling human diseases, particularly brain disorders.
- Chemistry
Not your grandpa’s smoke signals
A fuse dotted with chemicals offers a new way to code messages.