Uncategorized

  1. Planetary Science

    How a vaporized Earth might have cooked up the moon

    A high-speed collision turned the early Earth into a hot, gooey space doughnut, and the moon formed within this synestia, a new simulation suggests.

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  2. Chemistry

    Extreme cold is no match for a new battery

    A rechargeable battery that works at –70° C could be used in some of the coldest places on Earth or other planets.

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  3. Earth

    Early land plants led to the rise of mud

    New research suggests early land plants called bryophytes, which include modern mosses, helped shape Earth’s surface by creating clay-rich river deposits.

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  4. Animals

    It’s official: Termites are just cockroaches with a fancy social life

    On their latest master list of arthropods, U.S. entomologists have finally declared termites to be a kind of cockroach.

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  5. Animals

    A new species of tardigrade lays eggs covered with doodads and streamers

    These elegant eggs hint that a tardigrade found in a Japanese parking lot is a new species.

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  6. Health & Medicine

    Human skin bacteria have cancer-fighting powers

    Strains of a bacteria that live on human skin make a compound that suppressed tumor growth in mice.

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  7. Microbes

    A new way to make bacteria glow could simplify TB screening

    A new dye to stain tuberculosis bacteria in coughed-up mucus and saliva could expedite TB diagnoses and drug-resistance tests.

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  8. Cosmology

    Here’s when the universe’s first stars may have been born

    The first stars lit the cosmos by 180 million years after the Big Bang, radio observations suggest.

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  9. Life

    A rare rainstorm wakes undead microbes in Chile’s Atacama Desert

    Microbial life in Chile’s Atacama Desert bursts into bloom when moisture is available.

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  10. Life

    These giant viruses have more protein-making gear than any known virus

    Scientists have found two more giant viruses in extreme environments in Brazil.

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  11. Animals

    This scratchy hiss is the closest thing yet to caterpillar vocalization

    A new way that caterpillars make noise may involve (tiny) teakettle‒style turbulence.

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  12. Neuroscience

    Some flu strains can make mice forgetful

    Mice infected with influenza had memory problems a month later, a result that hints at a link between infections and brain performance.

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