News
- Humans
Top Prospects for Tomorrow’s Labs: National competition yields a dream team of young scientific talent
Twenty young women and 20 young men aced an early challenge in their scientific careers by becoming finalists in the annual Intel Science Talent Search.
By Ben Harder - Physics
Waves from the Big Bang: Upcoming detectors may view newborn universe
Ripples in space-time may soon give scientists a glimpse of the universe as it looked a tiny fraction of a second after its birth.
- Animals
Bite This: Borrowed toad toxins save snake’s neck
An Asian snake gets toxins by salvaging them from the poisonous toads it eats.
By Susan Milius - Health & Medicine
Early Fix: Prion disease remedied in mice
Diseases caused by misfolded proteins called prions can be reversed if caught early enough, experiments in mice suggest.
By Nathan Seppa - Astronomy
Kaput: Hubble’s main camera stops working
The sharpest, most sensitive camera on the aging Hubble Space Telescope has stopped working.
By Ron Cowen - Earth
Disaster’s Consequences: Hurricane’s legacy includes arsenic
Construction debris strewn across the Gulf Coast by Hurricane Katrina contains a disturbing amount of arsenic that could contaminate groundwater if not properly managed.
- Archaeology
Suburb of Stonehenge: Ritual village found near famed rock site
Excavations at a 4,600-year-old village in southern England indicate that it was occupied by the builders of nearby Stonehenge and hosted feasts where people assembled before transporting the dead to the huge circle of stones, which served as an ancestor memorial.
By Bruce Bower - Earth
Gas tanks could guzzle half of U.S. corn yields
Strong expansion of the U.S. corn-to-ethanol industry, now under way, stands poised to divert much of the grain from food uses to transportation fuel.
By Janet Raloff -
Plastics ingredient disrupts fetal-egg development
A common estrogen-mimicking chemical can damage eggs while an animal is still in the womb.
- Physics
The mystery of the missing mass
Researchers found that, for one kind of particle at least, being located inside a nucleus slightly reduces its mass.
- Materials Science
Microstructures make a beetle brilliant
Engineers looking to make a variety of surfaces whiter and brighter could learn a few things from a lowly beetle.
By Sid Perkins - Health & Medicine
Old cure may offer new malaria option
An herbal-tea remedy for malaria contains a component that may form the basis of a novel drug against the disease.
By Nathan Seppa