All Stories
- Humans
Germs’ persistence: Nothing to sneeze at
Years ago, I read (probably in Science News) that viruses can’t survive long outside their hosts. That implied any surface onto which a sneezed-out germ found itself — such as the arm of a chair, kitchen counter or car-door handle — would effectively decontaminate itself within hours to a day. A pair of new flu papers now indicates that although many germs will die within hours, none of us should count on it. Given the right environment, viruses can remain infectious — potentially for many weeks, one of the studies finds.
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- Life
Biology’s big bang had a long fuse
The fossil record’s earliest troves of animal life are the result of more than 200 million years of evolution.
- Humans
Cooking can be surprisingly forgiving
Network analysis confirms deviations from the recipe are quite feasible.
- Life
Cretaceous Thanksgiving
A fossilized feathered dinosaur dined on bird not long before its own demise.
- Chemistry
Radiation sickness treatment shows promise
The regimen could be used to protect large numbers of people in the aftermath of major accidents such as Chernobyl or Fukushima.
- Life
DNA to flutter by
The complete genetic instruction book for making monarch butterflies contains information about how the insects manage their long migration to Mexico.
- Earth
Oxygen a bit player in Earth’s outer core
Sulfur and silicon may be more abundant in the planet’s heart than thought.
- Health & Medicine
Getting the picture of how someone died
CT scans can often reveal a clear cause of death, possibly making some autopsies unnecessary, British researchers find.
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- Space
Super Saturnian storm
The Cassini spacecraft captured images of massive tempest in planet’s northern hemisphere.
- Animals
Lost to history: The “churk”
More than a half-century ago, researchers at the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center outside Washington, D.C., engaged in some creative barnyard breeding. Their goal was the development of fatherless turkeys — virgin hens that would reproduce via parthenogenesis. Along the way, and ostensibly quite by accident, an interim stage of this work resulted in a rooster-fathered hybrid that the scientists termed a churk.
