All Stories
- Anthropology
Court releases ancient skeleton
A judge's decision gives scientists the right to study the 9,000-year-old skeleton dubbed Kennewick Man rather than turn the remains over to a coalition of Native American tribes for reburial.
By Bruce Bower - Astronomy
Reflecting on the Kuiper belt
A new study suggests that at least some members of the Kuiper belt, the reservoir of comets and other frozen objects that lie beyond the orbit of Neptune, reflect more sunlight and are considerably smaller than previously calculated.
By Ron Cowen - Health & Medicine
Herbal cancer remedy is chock full of drugs
An herbal remedy that had been popular among prostate cancer patients was tainted with three synthetic drugs.
By Nathan Seppa - Earth
Leaden impacts of gum disease, smoking
Subtle bone loss associated with advanced gum disease can be linked to elevated lead concentrations in the blood.
By Janet Raloff -
Novel enzyme provides sperm’s spark of life
A molecule in sperm triggers a fertilized egg to begin developing.
By John Travis - Anthropology
Neandertals return at German cave site
Researchers who tracked down the location of a German cave where the first Neandertal skeleton was discovered in 1856 have unearthed new Neandertal finds.
By Bruce Bower - Astronomy
Magnetars: A missing link
A rare group of ultradense stars may be magnetars, objects with the strongest magnetic fields known in the universe.
By Ron Cowen - Health & Medicine
RNA interferes with cancer-cell growth
To curb the growth of cancer cells, scientists are silencing genes by introducing small strands of RNA.
By John Travis -
19128
Perhaps much of the controversy about evolutionary psychology devolves from forgetting some basic biological definitions. The gene is the unit of inheritance, which has a complex and imprecise relationship with the mature, viable organism that has inherited it. The unit of evolution is the individual organism. Therefore, the arguments about what is more important in […]
By Science News -
Evolutionary Upstarts
Theories of the evolution of the human mind are evolving, with some researchers now presenting alternatives to the dominant notion that genetic competition for survival during the Stone Age yielded brains stocked with a bevy of instincts for specific types of thinking.
By Bruce Bower - Plants
The Wood Detective
Alex Wiedenhoeft belongs to the elite profession of wood identifier, the person to call when a crime investigator, museum curator, archaeologist, or patent attorney with an unusual client really needs to know what that splinter really is.
By Susan Milius - Physics
Neon gives healthy glow to reactor
Preferring neon to nicotine, magnetic-fusion reactors called tokamaks get a performance boost from puffs of the noble gas.
By Peter Weiss