Feature
- Cosmology
Dazzle or dust?
The unpredictable glow of galactic dust could undermine the biggest cosmological discovery in years.
- Life
Designer T cells emerge as weapons against disease
Decades of attempts to boost the immune system’s ability to fight disease are finally starting to pay off. Reprogrammed T cells serve as new weapons against cancer and autoimmune diseases.
- Neuroscience
Legalization trend forces review of marijuana’s dangers
Marijuana legalization advocates tout pot’s medicinal benefits and low addictiveness, while critics point to its neurological dangers. Research shows that the reality is somewhere in the middle.
- Cosmology
The mysterious boundary
A debate has arisen over whether an astronaut passing a black hole’s point of no return would get stretched to death or flash-fried. Resolving the controversy may lead to new insights about gravity and more.
- Humans
Big babies: High birthweight may signal later health risks
A high birthweight might signal health risks later in life.
- Archaeology
Written in bone
Researchers are reconstructing the migrations that carried agriculture into Europe by analyzing DNA from the skeletons of early farmers and the people they displaced.
- Planetary Science
The ice of a distant moon
Jupiter’s moon Europa hides a liquid ocean, and conceivably life, under kilometers of ice. The challenge for engineers is how to penetrate that frozen barrier with technology that can be launched into space and operated remotely.
- Health & Medicine
Unsolved drugs
Long thought to launch precision attacks against bacteria, antibiotics may also cause lethal collateral damage, according to a controversial theory. Exploring how these compounds kill may reveal new ways to fight antibiotic resistance.
- Life
The name of the fungus
A rebellion has broken out against the traditional way of naming species in the peculiar, shape-shifting world of fungi.
- Health & Medicine
Whooping cough bounces back
A new type of pertussis vaccine introduced in the late 1990s may have led to the return of a disease that was nearly eradicated 40 years ago. Public opposition to vaccination hasn’t helped matters.
- Earth
Buying time when quakes hit
On the West Coast, geologists are developing an earthquake warning system that can provide seconds of notice before destructive shaking begins. The system could be ready before the next big quake hits.
- Cosmology
Cosmic question mark
Two ways of measuring the universe’s expansion rate disagree by about 10 percent. One of the methods may be flawed. Or it could be that a hitherto unobserved phenomenon is at work.
