News
- Earth
Inhaling salt raises blood pressure
People who work in environments where large amounts of salt particles hang in the air may literally breathe their way to high blood pressure.
- Health & Medicine
Tracking busy genes to get at cancer
By identifying which genes are overactive in certain breast tumors, researchers have discovered a genetic signature that could help doctors predict if and when a woman's cancer might spread to her lungs.
- Tech
Roughing up counterfeiters
A new anticounterfeiting scheme generates unique, reproducible identity codes that could be used to authenticate passports, credit cards, and other items on the basis of inherent, microscopic irregularities in the items' surfaces.
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A Slumber Not So Sweet: Loss of brain cells that regulate breathing may cause death during sleep
Elderly people may die in their sleep because they gradually lose brain cells that control breathing.
- Health & Medicine
New Carrier: Common tick implicated in spread of fever
The brown dog tick is capable of spreading the bacterium that causes Rocky Mountain spotted fever.
- Astronomy
Three’s Company: Asteroid 87 Sylvia and her two moons
Astronomers have for the first time discovered an asteroid with two moons, an indication that the rock is highly porous.
- Tech
Electronic Leap: Plastic component may lead to ubiquitous radio tags
Tiny radio circuits cheap enough to be embedded into countless products have moved closer to reality with the development of a fast, plastic semiconductor diode.
- Animals
Out of the Jungle: New lemurs found in Madagascar’s forests
Two new species of lemur have been discovered in Madagascar, the only home of these tiny and endangered primates.
- Earth
Methane Maker: Method gets to root of gas from rice paddies
Scientists have singled out microorganisms that appear to be largely responsible for natural emissions of the greenhouse gas methane from rice paddies.
- Health & Medicine
Sun Struck: Data suggest skin cancer epidemic looms
The incidence of non-melanoma skin cancers in young adults is mushrooming, possibly heralding an epidemic in follow-up cancers during the coming decades.
- Earth
Study finds low battlefield hazard in depleted uranium
A calculation of the health impacts from the use of depleted uranium in antitank munitions projects small increases in the risk of lung cancer and colon cancer, but only for the most heavily exposed individuals.
