News
- Health & Medicine
Molecular decoy thwarts Alzheimer’s
Biomedical engineers have developed polymer molecules that bind to and block the activity of proteins associated with Alzheimer's disease.
- Planetary Science
Assault on Mars
A Mars rover has discovered a patch of soil that's the saltiest place known on the Red Planet, an indication that water once coursed through the region.
- Earth
Volume of glaciers and ice caps is estimated
New topographic data have enabled scientists to estimate the volume of water trapped in the ice caps and glaciers outside of Antarctica and Greenland and to predict how high the sea level would rise if this ice melted.
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- Animals
Why a turkey helps a pal find a mate
A new study shows how the classic idea of kin selection could explain why male turkeys cruise in pairs, even though only one of them will win a mate.
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Babies Learn to Save Face: Infants get prepped to perceive
A minimal amount of parent-directed training at home allows babies to sustain facial-discrimination skills that they would otherwise lose by age 9 months.
- Animals
Big Mimics: African elephants can learn to copy sounds
Two captive African elephants—one rumbling like a truck and the other chirping like a different elephant species—show they may be the first land mammals other than primates to learn vocal imitations.
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Tug-of-War: How bacteria prevent host-cell suicide
New research suggests that bacteria may keep the cells they infect alive longer by tugging on the cells' membranes.
- Materials Science
Clever Coating: New polymer may prolong life of medical implants
Coating medical implants such as glucose sensors and coronary stents with copper-doped polymers could dramatically extend the devices' functioning.
- Earth
An Ounce of Pollution: Particles’ harm varies by person, region, season
A gram of small, air-polluting particles has deadlier effects in certain seasons and regions of the country than in others, and particulate pollutants may disrupt heart function most in people who already have cardiovascular problems.
- Astronomy
Alien Light: Extrasolar planets are detected in new way
Two teams of scientists report that they have for the first time directly detected the glow of planets that circle sunlike stars hundreds of light-years from Earth.
- Paleontology
Old Softy: Tyrannosaurus fossil yields flexible tissue
Scientists analyzing fragments of a Tyrannosaurus rex's leg bone have recovered soft, pliable material, including structures that apparently are cells and blood vessels.
