All Stories
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Human Genome Work Reaches Milestone
Two rival groups jointly announced that each has read essentially all of the 3 billion or so letters that spell out the human genome, the genetic information encoded with the 6 feet of DNA coiled up in every human cell.
- Health & Medicine
C-Minus—The Fallout of Parents’ Smoking
Children who live with smokers may need more oranges and other rich sources of vitamin C, a new study concludes. It finds that exposure to even a little secondhand smoke significantly depresses concentrations of this important vitamin. Oranges are usually the first food that most people think of when asked to name sources of vitamin […]
- Health & Medicine
Blood-Clot Surprise: Finding might explain a danger of Viagra
An amendment to the blood-clotting pathway might link Viagra to heart attacks in some users.
- Astronomy
Distant and Strange: Orb isn’t just another extrasolar planet
A novel search technique that could ultimately find Earthlike worlds has uncovered an extrasolar planet that is 30 times farther away than any other planet detected and lies closer to its parent star than does any other orb discovered to date.
- Earth
Northern Vents: Arctic shows surprising hydrothermal activity
A recent survey along a midocean ridge beneath the Arctic icepack unveiled an unexpected abundance of hydrothermal activity.
- Health & Medicine
Nifty Spittle: Compound in bat saliva may aid stroke patients
An anticlotting molecule in the saliva of vampire bats combats strokelike brain damage in mice.
- Materials Science
Quick-Change Surface: Material repels water on command
Researchers have modified a gold surface so that it switches from a water-attracting mode to a water-repelling one on command.
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Testosterone’s Family Ties: Hormone-linked problems reflect parent-child bond
Low or high concentrations of the hormone testosterone may contribute to delinquency and depression mainly in children who have poor relationships with their parents.
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Getting Attached: Sugar-protein link joins embryo to Mom
Biologists may have found the molecular handshake that attaches an embryo to the wall of the uterus.
- Animals
Retaking Flight: Some insects that didn’t use it didn’t lose it
Stick insects may have done what biologists once thought was impossible: lose something as complicated as a wing in the course of evolution but recover it millions of years later.
- Earth
Predicting geomagnetic storms
Recent observations with an Earth-orbiting spacecraft may provide new ways to predict when solar temper tantrums will cause the geomagnetic storms that disrupt communications systems on Earth and harm satellites.
- Humans
From the June 28, 1930, issue
MULTIPLE AILERONS When men first began to dream of flying like birds (which they have done ever since the legendary Daedalus), they watched the flight of birds, hoping to catch their trick and learn to imitate them. The many-faceted Leonardo used to spend hours and days watching and sketching pigeons. And when at last the […]
