News
- Health & Medicine
Replacing microRNA for cancer treatment
Replacing missing microRNAs in cancer cells may open up a new field for cancer treatment.
- Health & Medicine
Stressed-out DNA turns mousy brown hair gray
Scientists show how change happens when cells responsible for colorful hair lose their self-renewing abilities.
- Space
Alien visitor from afar
A speedy stellar neighbor may be a refugee from another galaxy.
By Ron Cowen - Space
Betelgeuse shrinks
A familiar star, visible to the naked eye, has shrunk dramatically in just 15 years.
By Ron Cowen - Health & Medicine
Tuberculosis bacterium subverts basic cell functions
The tuberculosis microbe makes compounds that alter basic systems inside key immune cells, facilitating the bacterium’s survival in the body, new research shows.
By Nathan Seppa - Planetary Science
Solar system’s future could be bumpy
A new study assesses the chances that two planets will collide or a planet will plunge into the sun in the next 5 billion years.
By Sid Perkins - Astronomy
Pinning down a pulsar’s age
Reporting at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society, researchers suggest some of these swirling stellar remnants are older, younger by a factor of 10.
By Ron Cowen - Life
Hummingbird pulls Top Gun stunts
Male hummingbirds set record for extreme plunges out of the sky.
By Susan Milius - Space
Galactic black holes may be more massive than thought
The giant black holes at the cores of massive nearby galaxies may be two to four times heftier than estimated.
By Ron Cowen - Earth
When the Great Lakes were lower
New archaeological evidence shows signs of prehistoric hunting and other human activities on now-submerged portions of Lake Huron.
By Sid Perkins - Physics
Friction gives snakes a smooth slither
Combination of friction and push propels snakes forward on flat surfaces.
- Humans
Children get social with virtual peers
Life-size 3-D versions of children can draw kids with autism into social encounters and more news from the annual meeting of the Jean Piaget Society in Park City, Utah, June 4-6.
By Bruce Bower