News
- Chemistry
Mulch matters
Mulch made from recycled construction and demolition wood can release arsenic into the environment.
- Earth
Grand Canyon fish seem to be rebounding
The population of humpback chub, an endangered fish found only in the Colorado River and its tributaries, may be stabilizing in some sections of the Grand Canyon.
- Animals
Seabirds take record summer vacations
Sooty shearwaters that breed in New Zealand have set a new record for off-season travel, covering 64,000 kilometers between visits to their mating ground.
- Tech
Nanotubes signal when engine oil needs changing
A new, easy-to-fabricate sensor made from carbon nanotubes detects when automobile-engine oil needs replacement.
- Tech
Hydrogen hopes in carbon shells
Lithium atoms added to buckyball surfaces bestow on these molecules a remarkable capacity to store hydrogen.
- Earth
Air conditioning could heat the world
Global warming predicted for the coming decades may decrease winter heating bills in some parts of the United States, but producing the extra electricity needed for summertime air conditioning will create increased emissions of planet-warming carbon dioxide.
- Physics
On-chip lamp scores a bull’s-eye
Etching nanoscale, concentric ridges around a lamp-on-a-chip known as a light-emitting diode, or LED, brightens the device's glow seven-fold.
- Earth
Rogue alga routed
An invasive-species action team has eradicated one of the world's worst weeds, a marine alga, from a California lagoon, its only known foothold in North America.
- Ecosystems
Fish as Farmers: Reef residents tend an algal crop
A damselfish cultivates underwater gardens of an algal species that researchers haven't found growing on its own.
- Health & Medicine
Total Recall: Drug shows long-lasting boosts of memory in rats
Research in rats shows that an experimental drug completely regenerates parts of the brain crucial to forming memories.
- Health & Medicine
Need for Speed: Faster-acting tuberculosis drugs now in testing would limit deaths
Drugs that take only 2 months to cure tuberculosis instead of the usual 6 months could prevent millions of TB infections and deaths.
- Astronomy
Solar System Small Fry: Stellar blinks reveal tiny bodies near Pluto
By measuring tiny dips in the intensity of X rays from a distant star, astronomers say they have detected more than 50 of the tiniest chunks of ice ever found in the outer solar system.
