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Materials Science

Sopping Up Heavy Metal: Hybrid material removes mercury from water

A hybrid material consisting of a bacterial protein and a temperature-sensitive polymer proves efficient at removing mercury from contaminated water.

Animals

Skin Chemistry: Poison frogs upgrade toxins from prey

For the first time, scientists have found a poisonous frog that takes up a toxin from its prey and then tweaks the chemical to make it a more deadly weapon.

Astronomy

Hubble Highlights a Riddle: What’s the source of quick-return comets?

New observations from the Hubble Space Telescope demonstrate that scientists don't know where a major class of comets comes from.

Planetary Science

Cozying up to Mars

The Hubble Space Telescope photographed Mars on Aug. 27 when the planet came closer to Earth than it had in nearly 60,000 years, enabling the telescope to take the sharpest global image of Mars ever taken from Earth's vicinity.

Archaeology

Art on the Rocks: Dating ancient paintings in the caves of Borneo

By dating the mineral deposits on top of cave paintings in Borneo, archaeologists have pushed back the date of earliest human habitation on the island by at least 5,000 years.

Health & Medicine

Double Shot: Anthrax vaccine gets makeover

An experimental anthrax vaccine appears to spur production of antibodies that stop the bacterium and disable the anthrax toxin at the same time.

Humans

From the September 2, 1933, issue

URN PATTERNS EXISTED LONG BEFORE URNS WERE MADE Urns, whether for flowers or for funeral ashes, have always had much the same pattern; so much so, that the shape immediately and automatically evokes the name. But that shape existed on the earth long before the earliest neolithic potter smoothed out the walls of the first […]

Earth

Live from the Aquarium

The Monterey Bay Aquarium in California offers Webcam views of its kelp forest, penguins, and sea otters, along with underwater glimpses of its open ocean exhibit and images of the ocean waters along Cannery Row, just off the aquarium’s decks. The cameras are on from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., PST, so they capture the […]

Math

Hyperbolic Five

Dutch graphic artist M.C. Escher (1898–1972) devised many highly original schemes in his attempts to capture the concept of infinity visually. One strategy he often employed was to create repeating patterns of interlocking figures. However, although he could imagine how such arrays extended to infinity, the actual pattern he drew represented only a fragment of […]

Astronomy

Stellar Tantrums: Tracking the flaring cycles of other stars

Astronomers are closely tracking the ebb and flow of magnetic activity and powerful flares on stars other than the sun.

Health & Medicine

Better Bones: Women benefit from low dose of estrogen

Ultralow doses of estrogen and progesterone given to postmenopausal women boost bone density compared with placebos, without causing the adverse effects seen in some women who get larger doses of these hormones.

Materials Science

Plastic Chips: New materials boost organic electronics

A new class of electrically conducting organic molecules provides researchers with improved materials with which to fabricate plastic electronic devices.