News
-
Health & MedicineMoving up the Charts: Drug-resistant bug invades military, civilian hospitals
Acinetobacter baumannii, a common bacterium, is becoming more virulent and drug resistant in hospitals.
By Brian Vastag -
AstronomySunstruck: Solar hurricanes rip comet’s tail
Images from a spacecraft show a magnetic hurricane from the sun severing a comet's ion tail.
By Ron Cowen -
Shifty Talk: Probing the process of word evolution
Words change more quickly over the millennia the less frequently they are used, a quantitative result that may aid in reconstructing old languages and predicting future changes.
By Bruce Bower -
AnimalsEat a Killer: Snake dines safely with strategic delays
An Australian snake kills dangerous frogs then waits for their defensive chemicals to degrade before eating them.
By Susan Milius -
PhysicsLight does some weird math
Adding a photon to a light pulse then taking one out gives a different result from doing the same operations the other way around.
-
Health & MedicineAntibiotic improves recovery from stroke
An antibiotic called minocycline seems to limit brain damage and disability in stroke patients.
By Nathan Seppa -
EarthArctic sea ice falls to modern low
The area of sea ice in the Arctic is at its lowest in nearly three decades of satellite monitoring.
-
AnthropologyAncient DNA moves Neandertals eastward
Evidence from mitochondrial DNA indicates that Neandertals lived 2,000 kilometers farther east than previously thought.
By Bruce Bower -
Health & MedicineDiabetes precursor may be checked by omega-3 fatty acids
Omega-3 fatty acids in the diet might fend off diabetes in children prone to the disease.
By Nathan Seppa -
EarthA different spin
A change in the properties of Earth's mantle at high pressure and temperature may influence seismic waves in a novel way.
-
Exercise steps up as depression buster
Aerobic exercise, done alone or in a group, eases depression almost as well as a common antidepressant does.
By Bruce Bower -
Planetary ScienceMartian rovers survive storm
Three months after being stymied by a planet-wide dust storm, NASA's twin Mars rovers are back in action.
By Ron Cowen