News
- Tech
Shape shifter shifts twice
Certain plastics known as shape-memory polymers switch to predetermined shapes when triggered by heat or light. Now, researchers have developed more-versatile versions of such polymers. When heated, each of the new triple-shape polymers switches to a second shape. Then, at a higher temperature, the plastic changes to a third form. “For some applications, [these] more-complex […]
- Math
A Fair Slice: New method makes for equitable eating
A new method for cutting cake yields slices that make everyone equally happy.
- Health & Medicine
Catching Flu’s Drift: Vaccines fight unexpected influenza
Vaccination can prevent three of every four flu infections, even when the vaccines are imperfectly tailored to block the common wintertime pathogens.
-
Feel No Pain, for Real: Mutation appears to underlie rare sensation disorder in a Pakistani family
Scientists have tracked down a genetic mutation that makes some members of an unusual family unable to feel pain.
- Earth
Spread Out: Organic matter scatters carbon nanotubes in water
Although carbon nanotubes usually clump in water, they readily disperse when the water contains natural organic matter.
-
Hottest Fixer: Undersea-vent microbe sets nitrogen record
A spherical microbe from the weird world of hot-water ocean vents has trumped the nitrogen-processing powers of all organisms previously studied.
-
Sniffle-Busting Personalities: Positive mood guards against getting colds
People with generally positive outlooks show greater resistance to developing colds than do individuals who rarely revel in upbeat feelings.
- Astronomy
Comet Sampler: Specimens show that inner and outer solar system mixed
Just as the solar system was forming some 4.6 billion years ago, some of the hottest material, residing so close to the sun that it was almost vaporized, sped out to the chilliest reaches of deep space, where it became incorporated into comets.
- Health & Medicine
Express delivery for cancer drugs
A new drug-delivery method has dramatically reduced tumors in experiments conducted with mice.
-
Stem cells from bone marrow make new fat
Some body fat comes from stem cells that migrate out of bone marrow.
- Chemistry
Happy fish?
Researchers have detected antidepressant drugs in the brains of fish captured downstream of sewage-treatment plants.
- Anthropology
Neandertals’ tough Stone Age lives
Neandertals that 43,000 years ago inhabited what's now northern Spain faced periodic food shortages and possibly resorted to cannibalism to survive.
