News
- Health & Medicine
Nabbed: Culprit of grapefruit juice–drug interaction
Researchers have pinned down the class of natural compounds in grapefruit juice that's responsible for its unwanted chemical interaction with many drugs.
By Ben Harder - Agriculture
Biotech cotton: Less spray but same yield
The way farmers grow transgenic cotton in Arizona lets them skip some of their regular spraying but end up with the same yield as traditional farmers, as well as the same impact on ants and beetles.
By Susan Milius - Humans
Report knocks NASA funding
A new National Academy of Sciences study joins the chorus of critics that claim NASA is overextended, sacrificing basic- science research in order to finish building the International Space Station and fund President Bush's plan to return astronauts to the moon.
By Ron Cowen - Anthropology
Cattle’s Call of the Wild: Domestication may hold complex genetic tale
A new investigation of DNA that was obtained from modern cattle and from fossils of their ancient, wild ancestors challenges the idea that herding and farming groups in the Near East domesticated cattle about 11,000 years ago.
By Bruce Bower - Animals
Monkey Business: Specimen of new species shakes up family tree
The new monkey species found in Tanzania last year may be unusual enough to need a new genus, the first one created for monkeys in nearly 80 years.
By Susan Milius - Planetary Science
Hubble eyes Jupiter’s second red spot
Hubble Space Telescope images are providing astronomers with the sharpest views yet of a new red spot on Jupiter.
By Ron Cowen - Health & Medicine
Sleight of Herb: Black cohosh mislabeled in medicinal products
A sizable fraction of the herbal supplements marketed as preparations of black cohosh contains none of that North American plant.
By Ben Harder - Earth
Blast Survivors: Fragments of asteroid found in ancient crater
Pieces of an asteroid that blasted a 70-kilometer-wide crater in southern Africa millions of years ago may have been found intact inside the thick layer of once-molten rock that the impact left behind.
By Sid Perkins -
Sharing the Health: Cells from unusual mice make others cancerfree
Immune-cell transplants from an extraordinary strain of mice that resists cancer can pass this trait to mice that aren't as lucky.
- Tech
Speed Bump: Tip’s tricks sort DNA, write at nanoscale
An atomic-force microscope tip has been transformed into a microinstrument for sorting DNA and depositing nanostructures by means of cleverly applied voltages that propel molecules along the tip's surface.
By Peter Weiss - Humans
Legal Debate: Assumptions on medical malpractice called into question
The notion that many medical-practice lawsuits are frivolous and intended to generate undeserved riches for their plaintiffs and lawyers isn't borne out in a new study.
By Nathan Seppa - Anthropology
Making sacrifices in Stone Age societies
A half-dozen burials at sites in Europe and western Asia dating to between 27,000 and 23,000 years ago provide clues to possible human sacrifices.
By Bruce Bower