Life
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Chemistry
Methane-making microbes thrive under the ice
Antarctica’s ice sheets could hide vast quantities of the greenhouse gas, churned out by a buried ecosystem.
- Life
To catch a thief, follow his filthy hands
Bacteria from a person’s hands may provide a new type of fingerprint.
- Ecosystems
Iron fertilization in ocean nourishes toxic algae
Efforts to prevent global warming by fertilizing the oceans with iron could trigger harmful algal blooms.
- Plants
Chemists pin down poppy’s tricks for making morphine
Scientists have figured out two of the final key steps in the chain of chemical reactions that the opium poppy uses to synthesize morphine, suggesting possible signaling strategies for new ways of making the drug and its cousin painkillers.
- Chemistry
Pit vipers’ night vision explained
A new study finds the protein responsible for snakes’ sense of heat.
- Life
Ingredients of hagfish slime revealed
Figuring out the ingredients still doesn’t explain how the fishes avoid premature mucus explosions
- Science & Society
Book Review: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
In her new book, science writer Rebecca Skloot describes how Henrietta Lacks' cells changed the face of modern medical science.
- Health & Medicine
Cats attracted to ADHD drug, a feline poison
Since 2004, drugs designed for use by people have been the leading source of poisonings among companion animals, according to the national Animal Poison Control Center in Urbana, Ill. And among cats, Adderall – a combination of mixed amphetamine salts used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder – has quickly risen to become one of the most common and dangerous of these pharmaceutical threats.
- Health & Medicine
For a lucky few, ‘dioxins’ might be heart healthy
Dioxins and their kin are notorious poisons. They work by turning on what many biologists had long assumed was a vestigial receptor with no natural beneficial role. But it now appears that in a small proportion of people, this receptor may confer heart benefits.
- Health & Medicine
First complete look at families’ genes
Comparing the complete genetic material of family members pinpoints genes involved in three rare inherited diseases.
- Life
Chicken cells have strong sense of sexual identity
In birds, hormones may not be the last word in determining males and females.
- Life
Evolutionary genetic relationships coming into focus
Researchers have filled in about 40 percent of the tree of life for mammals and birds, but other vertebrates lag behind.
