News
- Planetary Science
A World Unveiled: Crème brûlée on Titan
Penetrating the orange haze of a frigid, alien world, a space probe parachuted onto Saturn's moon Titan and unexpectedly came face-to-face with terrain that looks a lot like Earth.
- Astronomy
Stars in the dust
The dusty disks surrounding three nearby stars show that they played host to massive collisions between asteroid-like objects as recently as 100 years ago.
- Astronomy
Zooming in on a great void
New X-ray observations provide the most detailed view yet of the environment near a supermassive black hole.
- Materials Science
Magnetic nanorods on cruise control
Chemists have created miniature engines out of nanoscale metallic rods that propel themselves using chemical energy.
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Whalebones show damage from diving
Long-lived sperm whales typically develop bone damage not previously observed in marine mammals but found in some human divers who surface quickly or dive frequently.
- Earth
Air pollution trims fetal growth
Pregnant women who breathe polluted air deliver babies that are typically slightly smaller than those born to other mothers.
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Getting to gray hair’s roots
Scientists have unveiled a root cause for why hair goes gray.
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Goodnight moon, hello Mom and Dad
A California survey indicates that the practice of allowing babies and toddlers to sleep in the same bed as their parents do occurs in two forms, each with its own implications for the quality of family sleep and the children's psychological development.
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Same brain region handles whistles and words
Brain areas already implicated in the use and comprehension of spoken language play comparable roles in the whistled messages of shepherds living on an island near Spain.
- Health & Medicine
Phage Attack: Antibacterial virus might suppress cholera
Bacteria-attacking viruses that infect bacteria hold cholera bacteria in check throughout most of the year except during the rainy season when these viruses become diluted.
- Animals
Crow Tools: Hatched to putter
The New Caledonian crow is the first vertebrate to be shown definitively to have an innate tendency to make and use tools, according to researchers who doubled as bird nannies.
- Earth
Living in a Fog: Secondhand smoke may dull kids’ wits
Millions of U.S. children may have reading deficits because of exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke.
