News
- Astronomy
Ring around the galaxy
The Hubble Space Telescope has captured the largest number ever of elliptical galaxies with Einstein rings, a marker of gravitational lensing.
-
DNA Clues to Our Kind: Regulatory gene linked to human evolution
A gene that exerts wide-ranging effects on the brain works harder in people than it does in chimpanzees and other nonhuman primates.
-
Danger Mouse: Deleting a gene transforms timid rodents into daredevils
By removing one gene from a mouse's standard repertoire, scientists have turned a timid animal into an intrepid one.
- Earth
Nonstick Taints: Fluorochemicals are in us all
A new federal study strongly suggests that all U.S. residents harbor measurable traces of fluorochemicals, compounds found in a host of consumer products.
- Animals
Unway Sign: Ant pheromone stops traffic
Researchers have found a new kind of traffic sign on ant trails, a chemical "Do not enter" that keeps foragers from wasting their time on paths that don't lead to food.
- Earth
Roots of Climate: Plants’ water transport cools Amazon basin
Field tests in the Amazon have for the first time measured daily and seasonal movements of soil moisture through the deep roots of trees.
- Materials Science
Atom Hauler: Molecular rig snags multi-atom loads
Specialists in atomic-scale construction can now use a new molecule to gather small groups of atoms and drop them, as clusters, at specific locations.
- Health & Medicine
Natural Ingredients: Method grows vessels from one’s own cells
Starting with bits of skin, scientists have produced new blood vessels in a laboratory and successfully implanted them into two patients.
- Health & Medicine
Pill eases craving
An experimental drug called varenicline helps cigarette smokers kick the habit better than bupropion does, the most effective medicine currently on the market.
- Health & Medicine
Endurance cycling tied to lasting heart damage
Former professional bicyclers have signs of heart problems nearly 4 decades after competing in grueling endurance events.
- Health & Medicine
New drug fights heart failure
The experimental drug levosimendin, in combination with standard drugs, eases heart failure symptoms better than standard drugs alone do.
- Health & Medicine
Marrow cells boost ailing hearts
Extracting cells from a heart attack patient's bone marrow and then inserting them into the person's heart via a catheter can improve pumping capacity.
