All Stories
- Life
Rooting for swarm intelligence in plants
Researchers argue for a type of vegetative group decision making usually associated with humans and social animals, and go out on a limb by also proposing that information may be transmitted electrically.
- Chemistry
Locks to learn
A new way to probe interactions between pairs of hairs could offer insights into fly-aways and other tonsorial woes.
- Psychology
Face memory peaks late, after age 30
Striking an unanticipated blow for mature thinkers, 30- to 34-year-olds have the best face memory.
- Health & Medicine
A protein’s ebb and flow
Buildup in the brain of a protein linked to Alzheimer's disease may be due to reduced clearance rather than overproduction of the protein.
- Space
Collider in the sky
Protons buffeted by stellar winds in the Eta Carinae star system are accelerated to energies comparable to the maximum power of the world’s biggest particle smasher.
- Earth
Clouds warm things up
Satellite data from the last decade put hard numbers on a key and little-understood climate player.
- Space
Planet in the sky with diamonds
Scientists have discovered a Jupiter-sized orb with a mostly carbon atmosphere 1,200 light-years distant, the first time astronomers have detected such a world.
- Tech
Dirty money 2: Expect traces of BPA
BPA showed up on 21 of the 22 greenbacks surveyed in a new study. And the clean dollar? It appeared quite new, suggesting that dollars only become contaminated as they circulate.
- Life
Jigsaw genetics
Fragments of a fetus's genome can be pieced together from the mother's blood to allow prenatal diagnosis of genetic diseases.
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Dirty money 1: Expect germs
China’s yuan banknotes are bacterial magnets, relatively speaking, while Australian dollars circulate virtually germfree. The difference traces to a number of factors — not least being what they’ve been printed on, a new international study concludes.
- Health & Medicine
New blood test may predict some heart risk
People carrying high levels of a protein called cardiac troponin T are more likely to have heart failure or die from cardiovascular problems, two studies show.
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