Uncategorized
- Agriculture
Gene Makes Tomatoes Tolerate Salt
The world's first genetically engineered salt-tolerant tomato plant may help farmers utilize spoiled lands.
- Chemistry
Longest carbon-carbon bonds discovered
Researchers have found a type of carbon-carbon bond that's twice as long as the longest naturally occurring bond linking two carbon atoms.
- Chemistry
Carbon nanotubes show superconductivity
Researchers have made individual superconductive carbon nanotubes that are just 0.4 nanometer wide.
- Tech
Soaking Up Rays
Although light shines through body parts of a primitive marine sponge much as it does through sophisticated optical fibers for telecommunications, scientists differ on whether sponges hold clues to better fibers for humankind.
- Health & Medicine
Busting the Gut Busters
Scientists are uncovering a cache of specialized weaponry used by bacteria that can spear holes in the intestine, perforate it, force it to change shape, and then spew toxins that attack other organs.
- Physics
Insects in the wind lead to less power
A previously puzzling pattern of power loss in wind turbines results from coatings of insects that were smashed by the blades during low winds.
- Physics
Turning magnetic resonance inside out
A new method of manipulating magnetic signals makes it possible to gather useful information about a chemical sample—or perhaps one day a person—without often-claustrophobic confinement inside a magnetic coil.
- Physics
Quantum queerness gets quick, compact
New ways to trap and cool atoms may hasten practical uses of strange ultracold atom clouds known as Bose-Einstein condensates.
- Astronomy
When Galaxies Collide
Dramatic images from the largest computer simulation ever of a plausible collision between the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies highlight this report from the National Partnership for Advanced Computational Infrastructure and the San Diego Supercomputer Center. Astrophysicist John Dubinski describes the science underlying the computations. Go to: http://www.npaci.edu/online/v4.9/galaxies2.html and http://www.cita.utoronto.ca/~dubinski/tflops/.
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From the August 1, 1931, issue
THE TRUTH ABOUT DEATH VALLEY Death Valley is a deep trough between two mountain ranges. It is something over 100 miles long and averages 10 miles wide. Within less than 100 miles of Mt. Whitney, the highest peak in the United States proper, it sinks its lowest depression to 276 feet below sea level. This […]
- Animals
Don’t look now, but is that dog laughing?
Researchers have identified a particular exhalation that dogs make while playing as a possible counterpart to a human laugh.
- Paleontology
For past climate clues, ask a stalag-mite
Mites fossilized in cave formations in the American Southwest show that at times during the past 3,200 years the climate there was much wetter and cooler.
