All Stories
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Science Past from the issue of February 13, 1960
DISCOVERY ADDS CLUES TO COMPOSITION OF LIGNIN — The sugar glucose is part of the answer to a biochemical riddle — the exact composition of lignin. Lignin, which together with cellulose comprises wood, is a highly complex carbohydrate whose complete structure is unknown. It is considered a waste product…. Experiments … have shown that in […]
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Letters
Snack addicts The experiment outlined in “Junk food turns rats into addicts” (SN: 11/21/09, p. 8) seems to have overlooked an ingredient list. The junk foods fed to the rats were junky, to be sure, but which foods were the most addictive? Many junk foods are filled with alarming amounts of things like monosodium glutamate. […]
- Life
Carried aloft, tiny creatures avoid parasites, sex
Dry and blowing in the breeze, rotifers are safe from a deadly fungus — and perhaps from the vulnerabilities presumed to accompany asexual reproduction.
- Health & Medicine
Neurons may function more solo than thought
Neurons coordinate activity less often than previously thought.
- Climate
Water vapor slowed recent global warming trend
A decline in stratospheric water vapor has slowed Earth’s surface warming slightly in recent years.
- Health & Medicine
Running barefoot blunts foot’s force
A new study finds that going shoeless tempers impact but can’t say whether this difference reduces injuries.
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- Earth
Dinosaurs, in living color
Researchers find microscopic structures in some fossils that may have held pigments.
- Climate
Indian climatologist disputes charges over Himalayan projection
London’s Sunday Mail reported that it had reached the author of a chapter in a purportedly authoritative 2007 climate-change assessment and learned that this scientist – Murari Lal – deliberately used unsubstantiated sources for conclusions about the rate of glacier melting in the Himalayas. Lal doesn’t dispute that mistakes were made – ones that likely exaggerated projections of glacier melting. But he does challenge the newspaper’s charge that those mistakes were politically motivated.
- Humans
Cigarettes might be infectious
Science & Society blog: The tobacco in cigarettes hosts a bacterial bonanza — literally hundreds of different germs, including those responsible for many human illnesses, a new study finds.
- Life
For pipefish, measly Mr. Mom needs help
In species with pregnant males, females may put something extra into eggs.
- Life
Carnations had evolutionary bloom boom in Europe
New species have evolved at a surprisingly rapid pace, new study suggests
