News
- Health & Medicine
New approach might strike at the core of Alzheimer’s disease
By finding a way to stick an enzyme-inhibiting molecule to the membrane of a cell, scientists may have devised the framework for an Alzheimer’s drug.
By Nathan Seppa - Humans
Incan skull surgery
Incan healers became highly adept at skull surgery techniques that developed over thousands of years in ancient Peru.
By Bruce Bower - Ecosystems
Eight-legged bags of poison
Birds eating arachnids get high dose of toxic metal as mercury climbs up the food chain.
- Space
Searching for superEarths
Astronomers are exploring a new family of planets beyond the solar system.
By Ron Cowen -
- Ecosystems
Beetle attack overturns forest carbon regime
Ravaged Canadian region switches from carbon sink to net carbon source.
By Susan Milius - Space
Black hole once glowed brightly
More than 26,000 years ago, the Milky Way's central black hole suddenly but fleetingly increases its X-ray output.
By Ron Cowen - Agriculture
Study decodes papaya genome
Scientists have added another plant to the genome-sequencing roster: the tropical fruit tree papaya.
- Earth
Melt pond falls through ice in Greenland
A lake of meltwater atop Greenland's ice sheet wedged open a crack in the underlying ice that drained the lake dry.
By Sid Perkins - Health & Medicine
Old drug offers new tricks for fighting cancer
A drug once envisioned as a treatment for cancer might instead prevent the occurrence of colorectal cancer.
By Nathan Seppa - Health & Medicine
Triggering autoimmune assaults
Mouth bacteria unleash inflammation-inducing protein
By Janet Raloff - Life
Elephant kin liked the water
Moeritherium, ancient relatives of modern elephants, may have spent much of their time in lakes, rivers or swamps.
By Sid Perkins