Uncategorized
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Health & Medicine
Once a cesarean, always a cesarean?
Expectant mothers who've already given birth by cesarean section put themselves at increased risk of uterine rupture by trying vaginal birth.
By Nathan Seppa -
Health & Medicine
Cox-2 shows up in stomach cancers
The inflammatory enzyme Cox-2 is present in stomach tumors, suggesting that drugs that inhibit the enzyme might help supress tumor formation.
By Nathan Seppa -
Health & Medicine
New drug fights a chronic leukemia
A genetically engineered drug that fuses an antibody to a toxin attacks cancerous cells in hairy-cell leukemia.
By Nathan Seppa -
Physics
Electrons rock and roll in nanotubes
New probes of tiny carbon nanotubes reveal that the wavelike, quantum nature of electrons plays a role in tube properties and may even make possible novel electronic components that harness quantum effects.
By Peter Weiss -
Astronomy
Light’s Debut: Good Morning, Starshine!
Astronomers have at last detected signs of one of the earliest and least-understood eras in the universe: the murky time just before the first stars and quasars flooded the cosmos with light.
By Ron Cowen -
Animals
Bat bites bird. . .in migration attacks
The largest bat in Europe may hunt down migrating birds.
By Susan Milius -
Tech
New method lights a path for solar cells
Using a technique in which chemical ingredients assemble themselves, a research team has developed a potentially inexpensive way of making solar cells.
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Ecosystems
Marine plankton put nitrogen in a fix
New genetic analyses of tropical marine microorganisms hint that some species are converting significant amounts of atmospheric nitrogen into nutrients, helping to fortify the base of the ocean's food pyramid.
By Sid Perkins -
Health & Medicine
Antioxidants + heart drugs = bad medicine?
Taking dietary antioxidant supplements along with certain cholesterol-regulating drugs may diminish the effectiveness of those drugs in boosting the so-called good cholesterol.
By Janet Raloff -
Health & Medicine
Insect-saliva vaccine thwarts parasite
Mice inoculated with a component of sand fly saliva develop immunity to Leishmania, a protozoan that infects hundreds of thousands of people in the tropics each year.
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The trouble with small male spiders
A test of an old view of sexual cannibalism—that it's a way of rejecting suitors—finds that small males lose out, but not from attacks by females.
By Susan Milius -
Funnel-web males send knockouts in air
Male funnel-web spiders seem to waft some kind of gas toward females that renders the females limp, enabling the males to mate without being eaten.
By Susan Milius