Uncategorized
- Physics
How to peel permanent marker off glass
Water’s surface tension can peel a thin hydrophobic film such as permanent ink off glass surfaces.
- Anthropology
Skeleton ignites debate over whether women were Viking warriors
Scientists spar over a 10th century woman who may have had serious fight in her.
By Bruce Bower - Paleontology
Like sea stars, ancient echinoderms nibbled with tiny tube feet
An ancient echinoderm fossil preserves evidence of tube feet like those found on today’s sea stars.
- Tech
In these bot hookups, the machines meld their minds
A new type of robot can team up with its fellows to form a single-minded machine.
- Astronomy
The sun’s strongest flare in 11 years might help explain a solar paradox
The sun tends to release its biggest flares at the ends of solar cycles — and we might finally be able to test why.
- Psychology
Science can’t forecast love
Scientists’ forecast for romantic matches is unpredictable.
By Bruce Bower - Environment
Air pollution takes a toll on solar energy
Dust and other tiny air pollutants can reduce solar energy output by as much as 25 percent in parts of the world.
- Life
When a fungus invades the lungs, immune cells can tell it to self-destruct
Immune system resists fungal infection by directing spores to their death.
- Neuroscience
Brain chemical lost in Parkinson’s may contribute to its own demise
A dangerous form of the chemical messenger dopamine causes cellular mayhem in the very nerve cells that make it.
- Animals
Why bats crash into windows
Smooth, vertical surfaces may be blind spots for bats and cause some animals to face-plant, study suggests.
- Paleontology
Woolly rhinos may have grown strange extra ribs before going extinct
Ribs attached to neck bones could have signaled trouble for woolly rhinos, a new study suggests.
By Susan Milius - Tech
50 years ago, West Germany embraced nuclear power
In 1967, Germany gave nuclear power a try. Today, the country is trading nukes for renewables.