Uncategorized
- Astronomy
Distant Dust: Asteroid belt or boiling comet?
A swarm of warm dust surrounding a star 41 light-years from Earth may be a sign of the closest extrasolar analog to the solar system's asteroid belt.
- Physics
Extreme Matter: Mother of all material flows into view
By making an extremely hot and dense state of matter that, surprisingly, is a liquid, physicists say they may have finally created a sample of matter much like the primordial stuff that permeated the newborn universe and gave rise to all other matter.
- Anthropology
These spines were made for walking
A new analysis of fossil backbones indicates that human ancestors living around 3 million years ago were able to walk much as people today do.
- Anthropology
Noses didn’t need cold to evolve
Neandertals evolved big, broad noses not in response to a cold climate, as has often been argued, but in conjunction with the expansion of their upper jaws.
- Health & Medicine
Step up to denser bones
Step aerobics proved better than resistance exercises for building bone density.
- Planetary Science
Comet mission loses some focus
A camera aboard the Deep Impact spacecraft, set to fire a projectile into the icy heart of Comet Tempel-1 on July 4, is slightly out of focus.
- Earth
Balloons, condoms release likely carcinogens
Balloons and condoms that come in contact with body fluids discharge chemicals suspected of being human carcinogens.
- Health & Medicine
Company pulls pain drug from market
The Food and Drug Administration has asked Pfizer to stop selling its prescription pain medication valdecoxib (Bextra).
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Obesity may aggravate flu
At least in mice, obesity can greatly exaggerate the severity of flu by impairing the body's immune response.
- Planetary Science
A Martian haven for life?
Images taken by two Mars spacecraft suggest that a volcano on the Red Planet erupted long ago at the confluence of two riverbeds, indicating that the region had two of the prequisites for life: heat and water.
- Tech
Special Treatment
Researchers are developing nanosize metallic particles that can break down soil and groundwater contaminants faster and more cheaply than any other existing technology.
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19544
Your article on the reaction of nanoparticles of iron with trichloroethane (TCE) contaminating an aquifer, states that the TCE is converted “into ethane.” What happens to the chlorine stripped off the TCE? Is it converted into insoluble inorganic compounds or is it available to react with another aquifer contaminant to possibly form another toxic substance? […]
