News
- Health & Medicine
Running Interference: Fresh approach to fighting inflammation
Two experimental drugs stop inflammation in mice by preserving a natural inflammation inhibitor.
-
Sleepless in SeaWorld: Some newborns and moms forgo slumber
Orca-whale and dolphin babies and their mothers appear to skip sleep for as long as a month after the pups' birth.
- Plants
Long search reveals cell receptor for plant growth
More than 70 years after biologists identified the important plant growth hormone auxin, they have finally found a cell-receptor molecule for it.
- Health & Medicine
Sleepy teens haven’t got circadian rhythm
High schools that begin classes as early as 7:30 a.m. deprive teenagers of sleep, and attempts to reset an adolescent's biological clock fail to solve the problem.
- Planetary Science
Flashy news from Mars
A streak across the Martian sky observed by the rover Spirit was most likely a meteor associated with a comet called Wiseman-Skiff.
-
Monkeys keep track of small numbers
Monkeys show signs of knowing when the number of faces that they see matches the number of voices that they hear, leading a research team to conclude that these primates possess basic counting skills.
-
Placebo gives brain emotional break
Placebo-instigated anxiety reduction is accompanied by sparse activity in emotional parts of the brain as well as by intense responses in neural structures that dampen pain, a new brain-scan study finds.
- Tech
Sensor measures mass of one DNA molecule
A new biosensor that can detect the mass of a single DNA molecule could lead to faster and more accurate screening for HIV infection, cancer, and other diseases.
- Earth
Antarctica’s gaining ice in some spots
Large portions of Antarctica are storing more snowfall than they once did.
- Materials Science
Lube Tune-Up: Motor oil from recycled plastic could improve automotive-fuel efficiency
Chemists have developed a technique for making high-performance lubricating oils from recycled plastic.
-
Personable Brain Cells: Neurons as virtuosos of face, object recognition
Individual neurons in one part of the brain may assist in forming memories for specific sights, including the faces of famous people and images of well-known buildings.
-
Grow in the Dark: Bottom-dwelling bacterium survives on geothermal glow
A newly described species of photosynthetic microorganism uses light from hydrothermal vents in the deep sea to power its metabolism, making it the first such organism to use a light source other than the sun.
