Uncategorized
- Materials Science
Pliable carbon
The layers of carbon atoms that form graphite can be assembled into strong but flexible "graphene paper."
- Health & Medicine
CT heart scans: Risk climbs as age at screening falls
CT scans are increasingly used to investigate heart blockages, but their X rays can increase cancer risk.
- Animals
Gender bender
Disabling a chemical-sniffing organ crucial for courting behavior makes girl mice act like frisky boys.
- Earth
Cholesterol boosts diesel toxicity
Nanoparticles in diesel exhaust can activate genes that worsen cholesterol's damaging effects.
- Planetary Science
Deep Impact and Stardust: Still on assignment
Two sturdy NASA spacecraft have new assignments, studying comets and looking for exoplanets.
- Math
Cracking the Cube
A combination of mathematical analysis and supercomputer number-crunching proves that any Rubik's Cube can be solved in 26 moves or fewer.
- Earth
Hammered Saws
Sawfish, shark relatives that almost went extinct several decades ago, have now gained protection by international treaty.
- Health & Medicine
Taking a Jab at Cancer
Vaccines that train a person's immune system to kill cancerous cells, when combined with drugs that block tumor defense mechanisms, are starting to show promise.
- Humans
Letters from the August 11, 2007, issue of Science News
Sum kids While testing was done on 5- or 6-year-old children (“Take a Number: Kids show math insights without instruction,” SN: 6/2/07, p. 341), it would be interesting to see if this intuitive skill persists after these students are exposed to standard mathematical instruction in the higher grades. I suspect that the answer will be […]
- Humans
From the July 31, 1937, issue
Giant dragonflies from the Carboniferous period, a dust cloud obscuring stars near the sky's north pole, and a list of 13 inventions predicted to have great social significance.
- Ecosystems
Biota Behaving Badly
Members of an established ecosystem develop a sense of balance, usually permitting at least limited biodiversity and a stable structure. When interlopers arrive that aren’t responsive to the same environmental checks and balances, they can overrun the ecosystem, eliminating some members and quickly dominating others. Such bullying immigrants are known as invasive species—and they can […]
- Health & Medicine
New Clues: Gene variations may contribute to MS risk
Variants of two genes encoding immune system proteins may confer a higher risk for multiple sclerosis.
