News
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Health & Medicine
Stemming Incontinence: Injected muscle cells restore urinary control
Stem cells removed from healthy muscle, grown in a lab, and inserted back into women with urinary incontinence can rebuild a muscle needed to control urine flow.
By Ben Harder -
Materials Science
Color Collective: Polymer self-assembles into light-emitting film
Stacks of sheets of light-emitting organic molecules that assemble into nanoscale structures could be more efficient and luminescent than existing display materials based on organic substances.
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Physics
Swift Lift: Birds may get a rise out of swirling air
The wings of airborne birds may generate whirlpools of air to produce lift for flying, just as insects do.
By Peter Weiss -
Health & Medicine
Smog Clogs Arteries: Pollution does lasting harm to blood vessels
Air pollution does long-term damage to people's arteries, leading to increased risk of heart attack and stroke, a Los Angeles study confirms.
By David Shiga -
Astronomy
Disks of Dust: Planet-stuff surrounds other sunlike stars
Two orbiting observatories for the first time are homing in on planetary debris circling sunlike stars.
By Ron Cowen -
Cloning Milestone: Monkey embryos urged to stem cell stage
Researchers have coaxed cloned rhesus macaque embryos to grow to the blastocyst stage, the furthest point yet reached in cloning a nonhuman primate.
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Archaeology
China’s Fermented Past: Pottery yields signs of oldest known wine
Analyses of ancient pottery have yielded evidence the people living in northern China 9,000 years ago concocted a fermented, winelike drink from rice, honey, and fruit.
By Bruce Bower -
Mice smell a mate’s immune system
By sniffing molecules present in urine, mice gain insight into each other's immune systems.
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Health & Medicine
TB vaccine gets a needed boost
An experimental vaccine against tuberculosis imparts significant immunity, but only in people who have previously received the existing bacille Calmette-Guérin vaccine for TB.
By Nathan Seppa -
Astronomy
Gamma view of a big blast
Astronomers have for the first time used extremely high-energy gamma rays to image a celestial body.
By Ron Cowen -
Health & Medicine
Sleeve worn on heart fights failure
A new mesh wrap can be placed around an expanded and weakened heart to restore the organ to an efficient, elliptical form.
By Ben Harder -
Health & Medicine
Up and down make different workouts
An unusual study conducted on an Alpine mountainside suggests that climbing a steep slope improves the body's ability to process certain fats, while descending such a slope enhances metabolism of a key sugar.
By Ben Harder