News
- Astronomy
Mini Solar Systems? Astronomers find disks around planet-size objects
Disks with the potential to form planets, or at least moons, have been found orbiting objects outside the solar system that themselves are no heftier than planets.
- Health & Medicine
Homegrown Defender: Urinary infections face natural guard
Specialized peptides produced by cells lining the urinary tract stand guard as the first line of defense against bacterial infection.
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Cooked garlic still kills bacteria
Cooked garlic can kill bacteria, but less efficiently than raw garlic does.
- Health & Medicine
Can supplements nix kidney stones?
The majority of commercially available probiotic supplements don't degrade the compound that forms kidney stones.
- Health & Medicine
Dive suits could spread disease
Divers' wetsuits can harbor bacteria that cause diseases in coral and people.
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Hand gels falter
Alcohol-based gels may not effectively eliminate from people's hands a type of virus that causes millions of cases of diarrhea worldwide each year.
- Health & Medicine
For women, weight gain spells heartburn
A study of more than 10,000 women suggests that weight gain is associated with heartburn.
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Chimps lead way to HIV birthplace
A viral analysis confirms that the global AIDS epidemic originated in chimpanzees living in southeastern Cameroon.
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Zits in tubeworms: Part of growing up
Young tubeworms pick up the live-in bacteria they need for nutrition in a rite of passage that starts with a skin infection.
- Earth
Deep-sea action
Scientists using remotely operated vehicles have reported the first close-up observations of a deep undersea volcano during its eruption.
- Physics
String Trio: Novel instrument strums like guitar, rings like bell
A new type of musical instrument, equipped with Y-shaped strings, may be the first of a family of string instruments with unusual overtones typically heard in bells or gongs.
- Archaeology
Stones of Contention: Tiny Homo species tied to ancient tool tradition
Controversial new discoveries suggest that our half-size evolutionary cousins who lived on the Indonesian island of Flores as recently as 12,000 years ago carried on a stone-toolmaking tradition passed down from the island's original colonizers more than 700,000 years ago.
