News
- Astronomy
Astronomers discover smallest galaxy ever
Astronomers have found the smallest galaxy yet recorded, about one-sixteenth the diameter of the Milky Way.
By Ron Cowen - Physics
Solving a 400-year-old supernova riddle
Astronomers have determined that Kepler's supernova, the last stellar explosion witnessed in our galaxy, belongs to the class known as type 1a.
By Ron Cowen -
- Earth
Heating releases cookware chemicals
Nonstick coatings on fry pans and microwave-popcorn bags can, when heated, release traces of potentially toxic perfluorinated chemicals.
By Janet Raloff -
Aging vets take stress disorder to heart
Veterans grappling for decades with post-traumatic stress disorder have a greater risk of developing and dying from heart disease than do their peers who don't suffer from the stress ailment.
By Bruce Bower -
Trichomoniasis-causing organism is sequenced
Scientists have taken a first read of the genetic sequence of the organism responsible for a sexually transmitted infection called trichomoniasis.
-
Starved for Assistance: Coercion finds a place in the treatment of two eating disorders
Attempts by family, friends, and others to coerce people with serious eating disorders into getting mental-health care provide a valuable jump-start to treatment.
By Bruce Bower - Paleontology
Going Under Down Under: Early people at fault in Australian extinctions
A lengthy, newly compiled fossil record of Australian mammals bolsters the notion that humanity's arrival on the island continent led to the extinction of many large creatures there.
By Sid Perkins - Ecosystems
Saving Whales the Easy Way? Less lobstering could mean fewer deaths
A provocative proposal suggests that the U.S. lobster fleet in the Gulf of Maine could reduce the number of traps, maintain its profits, and improve life for endangered right whales.
By Susan Milius - Health & Medicine
Coming to a Bad End: Lost chromosome tips linked to heart problems
Men with short telomeres, the ends of chromosomes, are twice as likely to develop heart disease as are men with longer telomeres.
By Nathan Seppa - Chemistry
Fish Killer Caught? Ephemeral Pfiesteria compound surfaces
Scientists claim to have found an elusive algal toxin implicated in massive fish kills along the Mid-Atlantic coast in the 1990s.
- Astronomy
A Cosmic Pas de Trois: Triple-quasar system may signal galaxy mergers
Astronomers have discovered the first example of a trio of quasars, the brilliant beacons of light that seem to be fueled by supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies.
By Ron Cowen