All Stories
- Earth
Smog’s ozone spawns funky carpet smells
Strange, unpleasant odors may emanate from carpets for years due to reactions caused by exposure to smoggy air.
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Whazzits get their own insect order
Insect specimens that have puzzled museum curators for decades turn out to represent a lineage so odd that scientists have named a new order just for them.
- Chemistry
Fluorine atoms used to cut nanotubes
Researchers have found that they can cut carbon nanotubes into short, potentially useful pieces using a technique for adding groups of atoms to nanotubes.
- Chemistry
Unlikely ion made in lab
Chemists have created a molecule—the pentamethylcyclopentadienyl cation—that many researchers thought was too unstable to exist long enough to be identified or studied.
- Animals
Rebranding the Hyena
Zoologists are hoping that long-term ecological studies of the spotted hyena will assist in dispelling the animal's undeservedly bad reputation.
- Health & Medicine
Mammograms on Trial
New controversy about old data has physicians, women, and policy analysts struggling to decide whether all women should be screened with mammography in order to reduce deaths due to breast cancer.
- Health & Medicine
Honey of a Threat
An all-natural, organic food, honey has a benign–if not wholesome–image. Many people consider it a superior alternative to table sugar and corn syrup–two primary sweeteners in the U.S diet. Though attractive to bees, borage may lace its flowers nectar with toxic chemicals that could then show up in honey. James N. Roitman, USDA-ARS Comfrey, formerly […]
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From the April 23, 1932, issue
WELDING OFFERS CAMERA STRIKING FIELD OF BEAUTY By no means a trivial by-product of electric welding is the field of beauty the new art is opening up for photographers. While electricity eliminates the irritating staccato of noisy riveting, the photographer focuses his camera on a glowing scene of shadow and light, man and steel. Such […]
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Ant Patrol
With more than 11,000 ant species now identified worldwide, the “Antbase” Web site serves as the definitive guide to these social insects. Hosted by the American Museum of Natural History, the site provides links to a variety of resources devoted to ants, including databases, image collections, and news articles. Go to: http://research.amnh.org/entomology/social_insects/
- Astronomy
Strange Stars? Odd features hint at novel matter
Two stellar corpses thought to be made of neutrons may actually contain weird forms of matter never observed before.
- Animals
Big-Eyed Birds Sing Early Songs: Dawn chorus explained
Researchers report a strong relationship between eye size and the light intensity at which birds start to sing in the morning.
- Materials Science
Membrane Mastery: Nanosize silica speeds up sieve
A novel modification to polymer membranes gives researchers a means to tune certain filters so they separate molecules more quickly and more selectively.
