All Stories
- Animals
Insect form of sexual frustration takes toll
Smelling female fruit flies but not mating with them can actually shorten males’ lives.
- Life
To cook up life, just add citrate
The theory that RNA spawned the first organisms gets a boost from a common compound.
- Astronomy
Comet ISON approaches sun for Thanksgiving flyby
On Thanksgiving, Comet ISON will pass near the sun and may disintegrate.
- Ecosystems
Cannibalistic mantis invades New Zealand, eats natives
Native male New Zealand mantises try to mate with females of an invasive species, only to find out the hard way that those females eat their mates.
- Astronomy
Dust cloud, tail could explain exoplanet’s odd light pattern
KIC 12557548 b may be ejecting dust from its surface, creating a cometlike tail behind it and an opaque envelope of material around it.
- Planetary Science
Jupiter’s Great Red Spot explained
A computer simulation is the first to explain how Jupiter’s Great Red Spot has survived for the nearly 200 years humans have observed it.
- Space
Making the most of zero gravity
Astronaut and author Chris Hadfield discusses life in, and after, space.
- Life
Compounds defeat malaria at every step
Experimental drugs are first to kill all stages of the parasite’s infection cycle.
- Health & Medicine
Simple dietary supplements could help stave off AIDS
Many people newly infected with HIV stayed healthy on regimen involving multivitamins and selenium.
- Animals
To study turkey instincts, consider robot turkeys
In 2004, Australian researchers built robot turkeys to study the instincts of Australian brush turkey chicks. Robots can be a useful way of learning more about animals, but the use of robots has yet to take over in animal behavior studies.
- Neuroscience
The memory benefits of distraction
We usually think of distraction as a bad thing for memory. But under certain conditions, distraction may help rather than hurt.
- Health & Medicine
Thalidomide treats Crohn’s disease
Study of children with the inflammatory bowel disorder raises possibility of new use for tainted drug.
