All Stories
- Earth
‘Bug traps’ in Gulf to use BP oil as bait
To assay how appetizing polluting oil is to native Gulf micobes — and how rapidly they degrade it — researchers plan to set 150 “bug traps” on August 26.. Their bait: the same oil that had been spewed for months by BP’s damaged Deepwater Horizon well.
- Health & Medicine
New drug fights metastatic melanoma
A novel compound joins two other promising therapies to offer hope for patients with the advanced form of the skin cancer, who currently have poor treatment options.
- Chemistry
Deep-sea plumes: A rush to judgment?
A new report suggests a deep-sea plume of oil in the Gulf of Mexico has been gobbled up by microbes. But the scientist who described the incident doesn't "know" that. He can't — yet.
- Chemistry
How to bug bugs
New insights on how insect repellents work could eventually help scientists prevent the transmission of diseases like malaria.
- Chemistry
Tracking bird flu one poop at a time
Mice can sniff out duck droppings laced with the virus.
- Chemistry
Deep-sea oil plume goes missing
Controversy arises over whether bacteria have completely gobbled oil up.
- Health & Medicine
New gel seals wounds fast
A synthetic material revs up blood clotting at low cost.
- Health & Medicine
Amphetamine abusers face blood vessel risk
The odds of sustaining aorta damage are more than tripled in people who abuse or are dependent on amphetamines, a review of hospital records finds.
- Space
Solar system older than estimated
A meteorite’s age has pushed back the estimated time of the solar system’s formation by almost 2 million years.
- Life
‘Whispering’ gives bats the drop on prey
A stealth approach to echolocation appears to be adaptive for catching eared moths.
- Computing
Going viral takes a posse, not an army
Quality of followers, not quantity, determines which tweets will fly
- Earth
Most BP oil still pollutes the Gulf, scientists conclude
Below the surface, plumes of oil are proving slow to disperse and break down.
