Uncategorized
- Tech
Muck Tech: Natural enzyme displaces precious metal in fuel cell
A prototype fuel cell uses an enzyme from a soil microbe to generate electricity from hydrogen rather than from rare and expensive metal catalysts such as platinum.
- Earth
Breaking Waves: Mangroves shielded parts of coast from tsunami
Along a strip of India's southeastern coastline, trees protected certain villages from last December's tsunami, while waves wiped out neighboring settlements that weren't sheltered by vegetation.
- Paleontology
Caribbean Extinctions: Climate change probably wasn’t the culprit
Remains of extinct sloths unearthed in Cuba and Haiti indicate that the creatures persisted in Caribbean enclaves until about 4,200 years ago, a finding that almost absolves climate change following the last ice age as a cause for the die-offs.
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19607
I was wondering if researchers have given any thought to the idea that in the same way that disease devastated human populations after the European discovery of the Americas, perhaps disease was a contributing factor in the demise of much of the fauna of the Western Hemisphere. Could domesticated animals traveling with the humans, or […]
- Health & Medicine
Defense Mechanism: Circumcision averts some HIV infections
Men who get circumcised reduce their risk of acquiring the AIDS virus by more than half.
- Humans
Letters from the October 29, 2005, issue of Science News
Food for thought I note that pleasure activates the neurobiological response that fuels addictive behavior (“Food Fix: Neurobiology highlights similarities between obesity and drug addiction,” SN: 9/3/05, p. 155). It has long been a tenet of the 12-step programs that there is no pleasure greater than to use one’s talents to help others similarly afflicted. […]
- Health & Medicine
Single drug dose may be better against cholera
A single dose of the antibiotic ciprofloxacin cures cholera in children as often as a 12-dose regimen of erythromycin does.
- Planetary Science
Shoreline for Titan?
New radar images of Saturn's smog-shrouded moon Titan show evidence of a shoreline cutting across the moon's southern hemisphere.
- Planetary Science
’10th planet’ has a partner
The so-called 10th planet, an object larger than Pluto that ranks as the most distant body known in the solar system, has a moon.
- Physics
Nanobots walk ‘n’ roll
A molecule that waddles on stubby feet and another that drives on ball-like wheels demonstrate scientists' increasing control over the usually haphazard motion of molecules on surfaces.
- Paleontology
Some plesiosaurs went for clams
The fossils of plesiosaurs recently unearthed in Australia suggest that the long-necked, aquatic reptiles had a more varied diet than scientists had previously suspected.
- Materials Science
Brainy bandages
Researchers have taken a step toward smart bandages that would indicate the presence of an infection in a wound.
