6,745 results
- Paleontology
Bumpy Bones: Fossil hints that dinosaur had feathery forearms
A series of knobs on the forearm bone of a 1.5-meter-long velociraptor provides the first direct evidence of substantial feathers on a dinosaur of that size.
- Humans
Letters from the August 18, 2007, issue of Science News
Exhaustive analysis I would debate the “1,000 watts or more” value attributed to typical adults during strenuous exercise (“Powering the Revolution: Tiny gadgets pick up energy for free,” SN: 6/2/07, p. 344). Hiking up steep slopes, I rarely exceed 250 W myself, and typical hikers are going much slower. The 1,000-watt figure can only apply […]
- Plants
Cretaceous Corsages? Fossil in amber suggests antiquity of orchids
Orchids appeared on the scene about 80 million years ago, according to evidence from a bee that collected orchid pollen and got trapped in amber.
- Earth
A Gemstone’s Wild Ride
Diamonds may be carried to the surface in explosions of gas and rock fizzing up from deep within Earth's mantle.
- Health & Medicine
Nerve Link: Alzheimer’s suspect shows up in glaucoma
Amyloid-beta, the protein fragment implicated in Alzheimer's disease, may also play a role in glaucoma.
- Animals
Bite This: Borrowed toad toxins save snake’s neck
An Asian snake gets toxins by salvaging them from the poisonous toads it eats.
- Anthropology
Scripted Stone: Ancient block may bear Americas’ oldest writing
A slab of stone found by road builders in southern Mexico may contain the oldest known writing in the Americas, although some scientists regard the nearly 3,000-year-old inscriptions cautiously.
- Tech
Fire Inside
The events of 9/11 put new urgency into efforts to design buildings able to withstand the structural damage that fire can cause.
- Archaeology
Dawn of the City
A research team has excavated huge public structures from more than 6,000 years ago in northeastern Syria, challenging the notion that the world's first cities arose in the so-called fertile crescent of what's now southern Iraq.
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Touring the Poles
Hunting for bear leads to uncountable infinities.
- Humans
Letters from the May 19, 2007, issue of Science News
Merry go round When considering a spin rate of 1,122 revolutions per second, has anyone determined the diameter of the neutron star XTE J1739-285 (“Dance of the dead,” SN: 3/17/07, p. 173)? If, for example, it were the same diameter as Earth, it would be traveling far in excess of the speed of light at […]
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Perchance to Hibernate
As scientists work to unravel the secrets of mammalian hibernation, they're eyeing medical applications that could aid wounded soldiers, stroke victims, and transplant recipients, among others.
