News
-
Breast Cancer Lead: Overactive gene is linked to disease
A mutated gene that's overly active in breast cancer cells could offer a new target for cancer drugs.
- Paleontology
Big and Birdlike: Chinese dinosaur was 3.5 meters tall
Paleontologists have unearthed the remains of a gigantic birdlike dinosaur, 3.5 meters tall, that lived 70 million years ago in what is now China.
By Sid Perkins - Earth
Trouble for forests of the northern U.S. Rockies?
Climate change over the coming decades may cause forests in northern portions of the U.S. Rockies to stop absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and instead become net emitters of the gas.
By Sid Perkins -
How sea turtle hatchlings know where to crawl
Newly hatched sea turtles use a variety of senses, not just sight, to find their way to the ocean.
By Sid Perkins - Earth
Darker days during Arctic summer
Satellite observations indicate that Arctic regions reflected less sunlight into space in the summer of 2006 than in other recent years, a change that may exacerbate the warming of Earth's climate.
By Sid Perkins - Earth
Dust Bowl affected midwestern climate
During the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, immense clouds of airborne soil blocked so much sunlight that much of the Great Plains region was significantly cooler than normal during summer months.
By Sid Perkins - Earth
Age and gender affect soot’s toxic impact
Except in young females, small blood vessels in rodents lost the ability to precisely regulate blood flow after exposure to an oily constituent of diesel soot.
By Janet Raloff - Health & Medicine
Right combination of malaria drugs?
Children in Uganda who contract malaria recover faster with a drug based on artemisinin, derived from Chinese wormwood, than with a longstanding medical remedy.
By Nathan Seppa - Health & Medicine
Nutrients linked to brain lesions
The more calcium and vitamin D elderly individuals consume, the greater the number and size of lesions that show up in their brains.
By Janet Raloff -
Mental letdown for antipsychotic meds
People with chronic schizophrenia get surprisingly modest improvements in memory and learning from new as well as old antipsychotic medications.
By Bruce Bower - Earth
Storm Norms: Caribbean corals and sediments yield clues to hurricane frequency
The recent increase in hurricane activity in the North Atlantic, a phenomenon that some scientists blame on climate change, actually reflects a return to normal after a lull in the 1970s and 1980s.
By Sid Perkins - Astronomy
Galactic Émigré: Incoming dwarf galaxy could feed its larger kin
A dwarf galaxy at the periphery of the giant Andromeda galaxy may be a pristine building block for forming galaxies in the modern-day universe.
By Ron Cowen