All Stories
- Paleontology
Small ancestor of giant sauropods unearthed
Fossils suggest that the bipedal dinosaur occasionally walked on all fours and could open its mouth wide to gather foliage.
- Earth
Buried-lakes story wins top award
Some readers may be unaware of our sister publication, Science News for Kids, a weekly online magazine for middle-school readers. This morning, we learned that one of the site’s feature stories — Where Rivers Run Uphill — won this year’s top science journalism award for reporting news for children.
- Health & Medicine
The childhood nerve cancer neuroblastoma shows weakness
A compound that unshackles a tumor-suppressing protein called p53 can slow the growth of the malignancy in mice, a new study finds.
- Space
The Milky Way, aglow with activity
Combining infrared and X-ray images from three orbiting observatories, NASA has unveiled a never-before-seen composite portrait of the Milky Way’s bustling center.
- Earth
Asteroid impact could have stirred the ocean
Model offers one explanation for sudden change in deep-ocean chemistry almost 2 billion years ago.
- Climate
Guarded optimism on Copenhagen climate talks
Negotiators representing 181 nations completed their final prep work in Barcelona, Spain, last Friday, on a new climate treaty — one that they hope to build a month from now at a major conference in Copenhagen, Denmark. But at least one scientist worries that what comes out of the Copenhagen deliberations may not have sufficient coordination and strength to meet the challenges that Earth’s climate has begun throwing at us.
- Health & Medicine
Vinegar: Label lead-tainting data
Under California’s Proposition 65 law, products containing chemicals that may cause cancer, birth defects or reproductive toxicity must carry a warning label at their point of sale. Among such products: pricy balsamic and red-wine vinegars that contain lead. At least some California groceries apparently have taken a conservative approach and post labels suggesting all such vinegars are dangerously tainted. Although they aren't.
- Health & Medicine
H1N1: Call to revise flu-mask policy
Three groups of healthcare professionals sent a letter to President Obama yesterday asking that he instruct his administration to revise federal flu-mask guidance. What these groups want: formal recognition that two studies last month showed conventional surgical masks are about as protective as the fancy — but much more expensive — N95 respirators in limiting H1N1 infection.
- Anthropology
Macaws bred far from tropics during pre-Columbian times
Colorful birds possibly raised for ceremonial and trade purposes long before Spanish arrival
- Tech
House passes medical isotopes bill
A spot of encouraging news emerged yesterday on the medical-isotope front. The House of Representatives voted 440 to 17 in favor of a bill to reestablish domestic production of molybdenum-99. It’s the feedstock for the most heavily used nuclear agent in diagnostic medicine.
- Physics
Invisibility Uncloaked
In the race to make things disappear, scientists gain ground on science fiction.
- Life
Hormones give lantern sharks the glow
In a first, a study shows that bioluminescence can be controlled by slow-acting hormones, not rapid-fire nerve cells.
