News in Brief
- Astronomy
Exoplanet spin measured for first time
Astronomers measure the spin of a planet outside our solar system, and its days are short: just over eight hours.
- Science & Society
Students retain information better with pens than laptops
Compared with typing on a laptop, writing notes by hand may lead to deeper understanding of lecture material.
- Animals
Abandoned frog eggs can hatch early
If their father doesn’t keep them hydrated, frog embryos react by hatching early.
- Chemistry
Color-changing polymer maps fingerprints
Tiny beads of sweat may offer new way to identify people’s fingerprints.
- Animals
Submariners’ ‘bio-duck’ is probably a whale
First acoustic tags on Antarctic minke whales suggest the marine mammals are the long-sought source of the mysterious bio-duck sound.
- Planetary Science
Mountains on Saturn moon may have come from space
A mountainous ridge around the equator of Iapetus, one of Saturn’s moons, may have formed from cosmic debris.
- Materials Science
Blender whips up graphene
Easy recipe makes large quantities of graphene using kitchen blender.
- Genetics
Cloning produces stem cells from adult skin
Human embryonic stem cells made using adult cells could enable medical advances such as replacement organs.
- Astronomy
White dwarf boosts light of stellar companion
A gravitational lens in a binary star lets astronomers weigh the core of a dead star.
- Animals
Scent of a fruit fly larva comes from its gut microbes
Microbes in the guts of fly larvae produce smells that attract fruit flies.
- Anthropology
Laetoli footprints show signs of unusual gait
Contrary to prior study, 3.6-million-year-old hominids in Tanzania did not walk like humans.
- Anthropology
Earliest case of a battered child found in Greece
A baby living in Athens around 2,200 years ago was probably beaten to death.
