All Stories
- Space
Flooring the cosmic accelerator
If cosmologist Will Percival of the University of Portsmouth in England is right, the universe will end about 60 billion years from now, when every molecule and atom will be torn asunder by a mysterious entity that opposes gravity’s pull and turns it into a cosmic push.
- Ecosystems
Bring in the replacements
Missing links in ecosystems disrupted by extinctions could be restored by introducing species that perform the same function, new field experiments suggest.
- Health & Medicine
Leaving a mark
Child abuse may leave chemical marks on the brains of people who later kill themselves.
- Life
Brittle arms lose muscle
In lab simulations of future ocean conditions, brittle stars grow extra-calcified but puny arms.
- Agriculture
Ethanol Fallout: Health Risks for Livestock
With Uncle Sam pushing the production of ethanol for fuel, U.S. farmers are planting more corn than at any time since World War II, and garnering premium prices for each harvested bushel. But many livestock operations are getting hit with a double whammy: higher feeds costs and corn-derived feed that’s carrying triple the normal load of fungal poisons.
- Health & Medicine
Stub it out
Quitting cigarettes shows health benefits even decades after the last puff.
- Earth
Babbitt to Southern Louisiana: Look into Gondolas
“New Orleans, at the end of the century, will be an island” — literally, predicts Bruce Babbitt. Whether or not you believe his assessment, he makes a good case for considering the implications of climate change when planning federal projects.
- Humans
Teeth chronicle infant diet
Chemical analyses of teeth, including fossilized ones, may provide clues that tell anthropologists the age at which a child was weaned.
- Physics
Gödel, Escher, Chopin
Musical theorists see inuitive links between musical chords and geometries.
- Life
Not so different after all
Plague bacteria may be deadlier than its harmless cousin because of a few small genetic changes.
- Climate
Air Pollution Can Be So Cool — ing
Fossil-fuel pollution has been offsetting global warming to the tune of about 30 percent per year. Cleaning up that pollution, a must, threatens to accelerate warming unless humanity changes its fuel-use strategy.
- Life
The Arctic isn’t alone
Insects and other animals that regulate their body temperature externally may be especially vulnerable as the world warms.
