News

Chemistry

Tongue’s sour-sensing cells taste carbonation

A protein splits carbon dioxide to give fizz its unique flavor.

Health & Medicine

Brain speed-reads using just one part

Scientists measure the speed of recognizing, manipulating and producing speech in human brains.

Anthropology

Pygmies’ short stature linked to high death rates

Island-dwelling pygmies provide contested evidence that body size shrinks as mortality rates climb.

Life

Fly pheromones can say yes and no

A new study begins to decode pheromone messages and finds that the same chemicals that attract can also maintain the species barrier.

Ecosystems

Windy with a chance of weevils

Scientists have traced the reappearance of cotton pests in west-central Texas to a tropical storm.

Earth

Darwinopterus points to chunky evolution

A newly discovered pterosaur had the legs of its ancestors and the head of its descendants.

Life

Paralyzed, then unparalyzed, by the light

Different types of light freeze and then reinvigorate roundworms fed a shape-changing molecule.

Space

Europa’s proposed ocean could be rich in oxygen

A proposed ocean on Jupiter’s moon Europa may receive about 100 times more oxygen than previously estimated.

Health & Medicine

Getting to the core of H1N1 flu deaths

Lung inflammation and a lack of oxygen in the blood appear responsible for most fatal cases of H1N1 (swine) flu, three studies show.

Health & Medicine

H1N1 flu is back and found in 37 states, CDC reports

Just as vaccine begins to become available, swine flu cases show up in a majority of the United States. And early results from a new study suggest H1N1 and seasonal flu vaccination shots are effective when given during the same visit.

Physics

Entangled photons make better messengers

Quantum effect allows light to carry information farther for computing and encryption

Paleontology

Fungi thrived during mass extinction

Fossil analyses hint that several species thrived during the world’s largest mass extinction.