News
- Earth
Fabulon: Looking less fabulous
The source of polychlorinated biphenyls found heavily tainting some homes—and their dwellers—appears to be a durable topcoat for hardwood floors that was widely used a half-century ago.
- Materials Science
Fishy flash
Fish alter the growth of crystals in their skin, making it supershiny.
- Tech
Smells like DNA
By reshuffling the chemical letters of the genetic code, scientists have made short strands of DNA that can distinguish several different smells, such as explosives and food preservatives.
- Health & Medicine
Bariatric Reversal: Stomach surgery curbs some patients’ diabetes
Weight-loss stomach surgery in obese people with type 2 diabetes sends the disease into remission in some patients.
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Sickness and Schizophrenia: Psychotic ills tied to previous infections
Two new studies provide evidence for the longstanding suspicion that certain viral infections early in life promote the development of schizophrenia and related psychotic disorders.
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- Physics
Scanner Darkly: Tiny venetian blinds enhance radiography
Microscopic gratings that select scattered X rays might improve luggage screening and cancer detection.
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Do-It-Yourself DNA: Scientists assemble first synthetic genome
Assembly of the first human-made microbial genome could pave the way for making microbes with synthetic DNA.
- Ecosystems
Big Foot: Eco-footprints of rich dwarf poor nations’ debt
The first global accounting finds rich and middle-income nations stomping heavy footprints on poorer ones.
- Astronomy
Four’s a crowd
Astronomers have found a quartet of stars packed into a region smaller than Jupiter's orbit around the sun.
- Astronomy
Gravity at play: A double lens
Astronomers have discovered an extraordinarily rare double cosmic mirage.
- Astronomy
Case of the misshapen disk
A deformed disk around a young star may have gotten its swept-back appearance as the result of a collision with a dense gas cloud.
