News
- Physics
Magnetic Logic: Electron spins could do cool calculations
Novel circuits use electrons as tiny bar magnets to process information.
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Take a Number: Kids show math insights without instruction
Kindergartners can solve relatively complex addition and subtraction problems if allowed to use their intuitive grasp of approximate quantities rather than being required to calculate exact solutions.
- Chemistry
Packaging Peril: Chemicals in food wrapping turn toxic
Chemicals that prevent grease from seeping through food packaging can transform into a suspected carcinogen.
- Health & Medicine
Visualizing Cancer: Images of tumors can detect gene expression
Subtle features in X-ray images of tumors let radiologists infer which genes are active in the cancerous growth.
- Animals
Pothole Pals: Ants pave roads for fellow raiders
By throwing their bodies into tiny potholes on rough trails, army ants enable their comrade to race over them, improving the colony's overall foraging success.
- Health & Medicine
Early Start: Fetuses generate immune response to vaccination
A fetus can manufacture immune cells and antibodies in direct response to vaccine given to the mother during pregnancy.
- Earth
Ice Age Ends Smashingly: Did a comet blow up over eastern Canada?
An extraterrestrial object apparently exploded above Canada about 12,900 years ago, sparking devastating wildfires and triggering a millennium-long cold spell.
- Earth
Using seismometers to monitor glaciers
Seismic instruments could be used to estimate the amount of ice that shears away from glaciers as they flow into the sea, offering a way to better estimate sea level rise due to the breakup of those ice masses.
- Physics
Carbon’s mysterious magnetism
An X-ray experiment has yielded the most conclusive evidence to date that carbon can be magnetic.
- Planetary Science
Powering Enceladus’ plumes
The action of Saturn's gravity is responsible for plumes of water vapor shooting out from cracks on the moon Enceladus.
- Health & Medicine
Stem cells not required
Insulin-producing cells in the pancreas proliferate by cell division, unlike other body tissues, which regenerate from adult stem cells.
- Humans
Hot Competition: Students display winning projects
High school students from 51 countries gathered in Albuquerque last week to compete for scholarships and other prizes at the 2007 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair.
