News
- Health & Medicine
Our big fat cancer statistics
A new analysis of data from a 2002 report shows that obesity is the second-largest cause of cancer in the United States.
By Katie Greene - Health & Medicine
Wearing your food
A broccoli extract, applied to the skin, has been found to reduce the incidence of skin tumors in mice.
By Katie Greene - Health & Medicine
Dairy fats cut colon cancer risk
High-fat dairy foods appear to confer protection against colon cancer.
By Janet Raloff - Earth
Sex and the sewage
Chemicals in sewage sludge appear to have stunted the testes and fostered other reproductive-system changes in fetal lambs.
By Janet Raloff - Health & Medicine
Monthly cycle changes women’s brains
Activity in a brain region that regulates emotions fluctuates over the course of a woman's menstrual cycle.
- Planetary Science
Cassini snaps icy moon Dione
Saturn's small moon Dione has a heavily-cratered, fractured surface.
By Ron Cowen - Planetary Science
Protecting Earth: Gravitational tractor could lure asteroids off course
Relying solely on the tug of gravity, a proposed spacecraft could divert an asteroid on a collision course with Earth.
By Ron Cowen - Physics
Ghostly Electrons: Particles flit through atom-thin islands
Electrical measurements of one-atom-thick slices of carbon reveal extraordinary electronic properties, including electrons that seem massless and move at blazing speeds.
By Peter Weiss - Archaeology
From prison yard to holy ground
Archaeological excavations at a prison near Megiddo, Israel, have unearthed the remains of what may be one of the region's oldest Christian churches.
By Sid Perkins - Animals
Yikes! The Moon! Bat lunar phobia may come from slim pickings
A study of creatures that fly around at night suggests that scarce food may account for why some bats avoid hunting under a full moon.
By Susan Milius - Chemistry
Whiff Weapon: Pheromone might control invasive sea lampreys
Researchers have characterized the primary components of the migratory pheromone that guides sea lampreys to suitable spawning areas.
- Health & Medicine
Statins for Algernon: Cholesterol-lowering drug fights learning disability
A study in mice suggests that a drug prescribed for high cholesterol may reverse learning deficits caused by a common genetic disease.