News
- Space
Largest known planetary ring discovered
Researchers have found a dusty band that circles Saturn and has a radius of more than 12 million kilometers.
- Tech
Nobel Prize in physics awarded for work with light
Charles K. Kao wins for discoveries enabling fiber-optic communication, and Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith win for inventing the charge-coupled device
- Space
Inspecting an asteroid that hit Earth
Researchers have analyzed fragments from 2008 TC3, the first asteroid ever tracked during its descent.
- Psychology
Joint attention provides clues to autism and cooperation
Psychologists and philosophers convene to discuss the roots of shared knowledge at a meeting in Waltham, Mass.
- Health & Medicine
Nobel in medicine honors discoveries of telomeres and telomerase
Three scientists share the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of telomeres, which protect the ends of chromosomes, and the enzyme telomerase, which adds the structures to the ends of chromosomes.
- Space
Universe has more entropy than thought
New calculations suggest that the cosmos is more disorderly than thought and is a bit closer to heat death.
- Chemistry
Flowerless plants make fancy amber
A new analysis suggests that ancient seed plants made a version of the fossilized resin credited to more modern relatives
- Life
Mitochondria behind life span extension
Study in flies suggests low-protein diet works through power-producing organelles.
- Humans
Partial skeleton gives ancient hominids a new look
African hominid fossils, including a partial skeleton, reveal a surprising mix of features suitable for upright walking and tree climbing 4.4 million years ago.
- Health & Medicine
Excreted Tamiflu found in rivers
A Japanese study finds that excreted Tamiflu ends up in river water, raising concerns that birds hosting a flu virus will develop drug-resistant strains.
- Astronomy
MESSENGER captures new images of Mercury during a third passage
MESSENGER flew past Mercury for a third time on September 29. The spacecraft's mission will continue, with MESSENGER due to settle into a yearlong orbit around Mercury in March 2011.
- Chemistry
Earth’s ‘boring billion’ years blamed on sulfur-loving microbes
A new study suggests these organisms could have kept oxygen levels low and waters toxic, stalling the evolution of complex life.
