News
- Astronomy
Braking news: Disks slow down stars
Astronomers have the first clear-cut evidence that rotating young stars are slowed by the planet-forming disks of gas and dust that surround many of them.
- Animals
Hot and hungry bees hit hot spots
New lab experiments suggest that bumblebees like warm flowers and can learn color cues to pick them out.
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Autism’s Cell Off: Neural losses appear in boys, men with disorder
The brains of boys and men with autism, a developmental disorder that impairs communication and social interaction, contain low numbers of neurons in a structure involved in emotion and memory.
- Humans
Racial IQ Gap Narrows: Blacks gain 4 to 7 points on whites
African Americans reduced the racial gap on IQ-test scores by about one-third between 1972 and 2002.
- Earth
Stung Lung: Volatile chemical may cut respiratory capacity
Para-dichlorobenzene, a chemical in some air fresheners and pest-control products, may slightly impair lung function in millions of people.
- Tech
Microbial Mug Shots: Telltale patterns finger bad bacteria
A sophisticated pattern-recognition technique that borrows from automated face recognition may permit identification of harmful bacteria faster and more cheaply than conventional methods do.
- Earth
Northern Refuge: White spruce survived last ice age in Alaska
Genetic analyses of white spruce trees at sites across North America suggest that some stands of that species endured the harsh climate of Alaska throughout the last ice age.
- Earth
What’s New in the Water? Survey tallies emerging disinfection by-products
By analyzing drinking-water samples from U.S. treatment plants, a multi-institute research team has identified some unexpected by-products of disinfection processes.
- Planetary Science
Titan’s Lakes: Evidence of liquid on Saturn’s largest moon
New radar images strongly suggest that Saturn's giant moon Titan contains lakes of liquid hydrocarbons, marking the first time that researchers have found compelling evidence for bodies of liquid on the surface of any object beyond Earth.
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Virtual reality for earthquake fears
Using virtual reality technology to train children on how to cope with an earthquake helped reduce panic and evacuation performance during a later, real quake.
- Tech
Tapping out a TAI-CHI tune
A new system permits people to make a keyboard and more out of a tabletop or any other hard surface.
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Social jet lag: Need a smoke?
People who persistently fight their biological clocks by rising early or going to bed late are more likely to become smokers.
