All Stories
- Astronomy
Hot and Heavy Star Birth: Young cosmos delivers massive stars
Aided by a gravitational zoom lens, astronomers have discovered the hottest, brightest, and most crowded star-forming region ever observed.
- Earth
Cast-Iron Foot: Undersea snail has mineral armor
An as-yet-unnamed species of snail living around hydrothermal vents deep beneath the Indian Ocean bears a suit of armor forged from the minerals dissolved in the hot fluids that spew from its seafloor environment.
- Health & Medicine
Soy compounds thwart estrogen
Soy-stress compound interferes with estrogen activity, possibly pointing the way to a new breast-cancer drug.
- Earth
UV-pollutant combo hits tadpoles hard
Coincident exposure to ultraviolet light and an estrogen-mimicking pollutant severely jeopardized the chance a tadpole would reach adulthood.
- Earth
Sewage linked to fish-gender quirks
Releases from sewage treatment plants appear to impair reproductive tissues in fish.
- Earth
Pollutants shape baby-gator gonads
The same pollutants that appear to shorten the length of a grown-alligator's phallus actually lead to this organ's lengthening in baby gators.
- Earth
POPs treaty enacted
A new United Nations treaty that seeks to phase down or eliminate production and use of 16 persistent, toxic pollutants has gone into effect.
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Underwater balancing act
Researchers have identified a gene that influences the growth of crystals in the inner ears of zebrafish and found that modifying this gene can cause the fish to lose their sense of gravity.
- Planetary Science
Bone-dry Mars?
The presence of large amounts of olivine, a mineral that undergoes rapid chemical transformation when exposed to liquid water, argues against ancient oceans or lakes on Mars.
- Earth
Seals’ meals, plastic pieces and all
Bite-size pieces of plastic chipped from wave-battered consumer products work their way up marine food chains, suggests a study of fur seals in Australia.
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In this article, the white cliffs of Dover are offered as a “notable example” of the precipitated carbonate deposits some have expected to find had Mars been wet and warm in the past. The Dover chalks are an unfortunate choice for comparison because they’re composed primarily of the calcitic remains of microscopic marine phytoplankton. As […]
- Planetary Science
Martian Invasion
If all goes according to plan, three spacecraft—one in December, two in January—will land on the Red Planet, looking for evidence that liquid water once flowed on its surface.
