News
- Astronomy
Black hole survey
Scanning the sky for high-energy X rays, a NASA satellite found more than 200 supermassive black holes within 400 million light-years of Earth.
By Ron Cowen - Earth
Farm salmon spread deadly lice
In the Pacific Northwest, sea lice that spread from cultivated salmon to their wild counterparts have become major parasites affecting the wild population.
By Ben Harder - Chemistry
Were Viking landers blind to life?
The Viking landers may have missed potential signs of life when they explored Mars in 1976.
- Earth
The African source of the Amazon’s fertilizer
More than half of the airborne dust that provides vital nutrients to the Amazonian rainforest comes from a small corner of the Sahara.
By Sid Perkins - Tech
The Little Chill: Tiny wind generator to cool microchip hot spots
By generating a tiny cooling wind, a microscale silicon needle armed with a powerful electric field has demonstrated its potential as a new way to cool increasingly hot microchips.
By Peter Weiss -
Birds Beware: Several veterinary drugs may kill scavengers
Scavenging birds worldwide could be at risk of accidental poisoning from carcasses of livestock that farmers had dosed with certain anti-inflammatory drugs.
By Susan Milius - Astronomy
New eye on the sun
The recently launched Hinode spacecraft captured an X-ray portrait of several-million-degree gas in the sun's outer atmosphere.
By Ron Cowen -
Hot, Hot, Hot: Peppers and spiders reach same pain receptor
The burn of hot peppers and the searing pain of a spider bite could have a common cause.
- Health & Medicine
See How They See: Immature cells boost vision in night-blind mice
Transplanted retinal cells can restore some vision in mice with degenerative eye disease.
By Ben Harder -
Sick and Tired: Tracking paths to chronic fatigue
Stressful experiences and a genetic predisposition toward emotional turmoil contribute to some cases of chronic fatigue syndrome.
By Bruce Bower - Earth
Not So Clean: Service industries emit greenhouse gases too
Service industries such as the retail trade are creating just as much planet-warming carbon dioxide as the manufacture and operation of motor vehicles do.
By Sid Perkins - Health & Medicine
Malaria Reversal: Drug regains potency in African nation
An inexpensive drug that had lost much of its punch against malaria over the past 20 years is showing signs of regaining its strength in the African nation of Malawi.
By Nathan Seppa