All Stories
- Science & Society
Citation inflation
Many journals – and the authors who publish their novel data and analyses in them – rely on “impact factors” as a gauge of the importance and prestige of their work. However, a new analysis turns up subtle ways that journals can game the system to artificially inflate their impact factor.
- Earth
Planes can trigger snowfall
Under certain conditions, aircraft can trigger precipitation as they pass through moisture-laden clouds.
- Life
Forget mice, elephants intimidated by ants
Swarms of little nuisances have an outsized effect on who nibbles which trees in the African savanna.
- Health & Medicine
H1N1 virus lacks Spanish flu’s killer protein
Researchers uncover a deadly secret of Spanish flu.
- Health & Medicine
Different berries, similar cancer-fighting effects
Animal tests suggest that esophageal and breast cancer might make good targets for several types of berries as dietary supplements.
- Humans
Crude pick-ups
To date, 400 skimmers have retrieved some 18 million gallons of oiled water from the BP Gulf spill, according to Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen during a June 11 press briefing. After removing the entrained water, this translates to between 1.8 million and 2.7 million gallons of crude oil. Another 3.8 million gallons of oil have been burned at sea. Four million gallons more have been collected through a near-mile-long riser tube and a containment cap fitted over the broken Deepwater Horizon wellhead.
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Hayabusa asteroid sample return mission lands in Australia
Capsule recovered, scientists will soon know what the probe collected.
- Humans
First Mexican-American and African-American genomes completed
Studies hint that genetic diversity among Native Americans may rival that seen in some African populations.
- Earth
Operation Icewatch 2010 gears up
Climate experts turn their gaze north to monitor this summer's Arctic melt.
- Psychology
Travelers have southern bias
Southern routes to a destination often get picked over same-distance northern routes, possibly because people equate north with “up.”
- Physics
Bouncing beads outwit Feynman
Ratchet-and-pawl thought experiment whirs to life, extracting work from bouncing beads.
- Humans
BP spill: Gulf is primed to heal, but . . .
Every day, Mother Nature burps another 1,000 barrels of crude into the Gulf of Mexico, along with additional quantities of natural gas. Normally, these hydrocarbons don’t stick around long because local bacteria have evolved to eat them about as fast as they appear. Which is potentially good news, she explained in testimony during a pair of June 9 House subcommittee events on Capitol Hill, because those bugs are now in place to begin chowing down on the oil and gas entering the Gulf from BP's damaged Deepwater Horizon well.
