News
- Health & Medicine
Bug Zapper: Novel drug kills resistant bacteria
A newly recognized compound can wipe out some of the most troublesome antibiotic-resistant bacteria, lab tests show.
By Nathan Seppa - Paleontology
Remains may be an evolutionary relic
Fossils recently found in southwestern China may be of a lineage that originated long before the Cambrian explosion of biodiversity, when most major groups of animals first appeared in the fossil record.
By Sid Perkins - Earth
Three Gorges Dam is affecting ocean life
Oceanographic surveys suggest that China's Three Gorges Dam is already influencing biological productivity in the East China Sea, even though the structure is still under construction.
By Sid Perkins -
Cancer gene is also important for growth
A certain tumor-suppressing gene appears to also control development in immature animals.
- Tech
Rounding out an insect-eye view
A new humanmade version of an insect's compound eye could perform like the real thing.
By Peter Weiss - Humans
Roads pose growing danger in poor countries
Although roads are getting safer in many developed countries, traffic accidents are a rising and underestimated killer worldwide.
By Ben Harder - Health & Medicine
Nabbed: Culprit of grapefruit juice–drug interaction
Researchers have pinned down the class of natural compounds in grapefruit juice that's responsible for its unwanted chemical interaction with many drugs.
By Ben Harder - Agriculture
Biotech cotton: Less spray but same yield
The way farmers grow transgenic cotton in Arizona lets them skip some of their regular spraying but end up with the same yield as traditional farmers, as well as the same impact on ants and beetles.
By Susan Milius - Humans
Report knocks NASA funding
A new National Academy of Sciences study joins the chorus of critics that claim NASA is overextended, sacrificing basic- science research in order to finish building the International Space Station and fund President Bush's plan to return astronauts to the moon.
By Ron Cowen - Anthropology
Cattle’s Call of the Wild: Domestication may hold complex genetic tale
A new investigation of DNA that was obtained from modern cattle and from fossils of their ancient, wild ancestors challenges the idea that herding and farming groups in the Near East domesticated cattle about 11,000 years ago.
By Bruce Bower - Animals
Monkey Business: Specimen of new species shakes up family tree
The new monkey species found in Tanzania last year may be unusual enough to need a new genus, the first one created for monkeys in nearly 80 years.
By Susan Milius - Planetary Science
Hubble eyes Jupiter’s second red spot
Hubble Space Telescope images are providing astronomers with the sharpest views yet of a new red spot on Jupiter.
By Ron Cowen