News
- Earth
Under Pressure: High-stress tests show surprising change in a mantle mineral’s behavior
Compressing a common iron-bearing mineral to the pressures found deep within Earth makes the material much stiffer, which might explain why seismic waves travel particularly fast through some zones of rock.
By Sid Perkins -
Bacterial Snitch: Species competes by telling on another
A bacterial species that typically colonizes people's noses may win out over another bacterium by tattling to the host's immune system.
- Animals
Meat-Eating Caterpillar: It hunts snails and ties them down
A newly named species of Hawaiian caterpillar sneaks up on a resting snail and quickly spins silk strands around it, lashing it to the spot, and then eats it.
By Susan Milius - Earth
Ultrasound solution to toxin pollution
Ultrasound treatment of water can generate reactive chemicals that destroy potentially lethal algal toxins.
By Janet Raloff - Astronomy
Grand illusion
Astronomers have detected the most distant cosmic mirage ever recorded.
By Ron Cowen - Animals
Ladybug mom provides infertile eggs as baby food
When food gets scarce, multicolored Asian ladybugs lay extra dud eggs that can end up as emergency rations for their young.
By Susan Milius -
Yellow color gives microbe its power
The bright-yellow pigment that tints the bacteria that cause staph infections is pivotal to the microbe's virulence.
- Health & Medicine
A problem at hand for catchers
A young professional baseball catcher, who may receive more than 100 pitches per game thrown at more than 90 miles per hour, may be virtually certain to develop circulatory abnormalities in his catching hand.
By Ben Harder - Agriculture
Soy-protein quality versus quantity
New tests show that as the protein yields of soybeans rise, the growth-enhancing quality of that protein as a food or feed decreases.
By Janet Raloff - Anthropology
People fired up Aussie extinctions
Early Australian settlers may have altered the continent's landscape around 50,000 years ago, leading to the extinction of many animal species.
By Bruce Bower - Astronomy
Core mystery
Despite new images from the Hubble Space Telescope, the brightest known supernova of the past 400 years remains a puzzle for astronomers.
By Ron Cowen - Astronomy
Triple Play: A planet with three suns
Three suns grace the skies above a newly found, Jupiterlike extrasolar planet, posing a puzzle for how massive planets form in a closely-knit, multiple-star system.
By Ron Cowen