377 results
- Chemistry
Molecules/Matter & Energy
A first look at the roots of sight, plus fading blues, steady birds and more in this week’s news.
- Chemistry
Idling jets pollute more than thought
Oily droplets emitted by planes operating at low power can turn into potentially toxic airborne particles.
- Chemistry
Meteorites contain chemicals linked to life
Space rocks could have delivered DNA building blocks to Earth.
- Chemistry
Molecules/Matter & Energy
How leeches are able to swell tenfold, plus not-so-super solids, new natural toxins and more in this week's news.
- Chemistry
Spray of zinc marks fertilization
Embryonic development begins with an outpouring of the metal, illustrating chemistry's importance in orchestrating biological processes.
- Chemistry
Molecules/Matter & Energy
Detecting gunshot residue, free-falling through sand and thinning blood magnetically in this week's news.
- Earth
Eels point to suffocating Gulf floor
In June, scientists predicted that the Gulf of Mexico’s annual dead zone — a subsea region where the water contains too little oxygen to support life — might develop into the biggest ever. In fact, that didn’t happen. Owing to the fortuitous arrival of stormy weather, this year’s dead zone peaked at about 6,800 square miles, scientists reported on Aug. 1 — big but far from the record behemoth of 9,500 square miles that had been mentioned as distinctly possible.
- Life
Microbes may sky jump to new hosts
The role of microbes in cloud formation and precipitation may not be an accident of chemistry so much as an evolutionary adaptation by certain bacteria and other nonsentient beings, a scientist posited at the annual meeting of the American Society for Microbiology.
- Chemistry
Molecules/Matter & Energy
Antimatter in a bottle, superfluid swirls, ladybug poisons and more in this week's news.
- Chemistry
Plants and predators pick same poison
Zygaena caterpillars and their herbaceous hosts independently evolved an identical recipe for cyanide.
- Tech
Cans bring BPA to dinner, FDA confirms
Federal chemists have confirmed what everyone had expected: that if a bisphenol-A-based resin is used to line most food cans, there’s a high likelihood the contents of those cans will contain at least traces of BPA.
- Chemistry
Natural pain-killing chemical synthesized
Conolidine — a headache to isolate from the plant that makes it — can now be produced from scratch in the lab, opening the promising compound to study.
