News
- Planetary Science
Pebbles from Heaven: Tracking planets in the making
Recording radio waves from the region around a young star, astronomers have for the first time documented the making pebbles, a key step in the rocky road to planethood.
- Earth
Bacteria Ride the Tide: Moon’s phases predict water quality at beaches
At many ocean beaches, full and new moons coincide with the greatest concentrations of bacteria in the water.
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Muscle Men: Lab-grown cells mirror source’s characteristics
Researchers studying muscle cells maintained in petri dishes burn sugar and fat with the same efficiency as do the people from whom the cells are isolated.
- Chemistry
Inside a melting crystal
A model crystal made of water-saturated polymer spheres shows that small defects in a crystal can cause it to melt from the inside out.
- Health & Medicine
Running Interference: Fresh approach to fighting inflammation
Two experimental drugs stop inflammation in mice by preserving a natural inflammation inhibitor.
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Sleepless in SeaWorld: Some newborns and moms forgo slumber
Orca-whale and dolphin babies and their mothers appear to skip sleep for as long as a month after the pups' birth.
- Plants
Long search reveals cell receptor for plant growth
More than 70 years after biologists identified the important plant growth hormone auxin, they have finally found a cell-receptor molecule for it.
- Health & Medicine
Sleepy teens haven’t got circadian rhythm
High schools that begin classes as early as 7:30 a.m. deprive teenagers of sleep, and attempts to reset an adolescent's biological clock fail to solve the problem.
- Planetary Science
Flashy news from Mars
A streak across the Martian sky observed by the rover Spirit was most likely a meteor associated with a comet called Wiseman-Skiff.
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Monkeys keep track of small numbers
Monkeys show signs of knowing when the number of faces that they see matches the number of voices that they hear, leading a research team to conclude that these primates possess basic counting skills.
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Placebo gives brain emotional break
Placebo-instigated anxiety reduction is accompanied by sparse activity in emotional parts of the brain as well as by intense responses in neural structures that dampen pain, a new brain-scan study finds.
- Tech
Sensor measures mass of one DNA molecule
A new biosensor that can detect the mass of a single DNA molecule could lead to faster and more accurate screening for HIV infection, cancer, and other diseases.
