News
- Physics
Tense encounters drive a nanomotor
Exploiting the relative strength of surface tension forces in the world of tiny objects, a novel type of nanomotor creates a powerful thrust each time molten metal droplets merge.
- Health & Medicine
Detecting cancer in a flash
Instant identification of cancer cells may become possible following experiments demonstrating that healthy and cancerous cells alter laser light in different, and distinguishable, ways.
- Animals
DNA tells pigs’ tale of diverse ancestry
A genetic study indicates that pigs were domesticated in at least seven different parts of Asia and Europe, not in just two regions, as many researchers had assumed.
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Phages take breaks while ejecting DNA
Bacterial viruses, or phages, inject DNA into their prey in a way that is more complicated than researchers had previously thought.
- Earth
Lightning creates radiation-safe zone
A relatively safe region within the seas of radiation that surround Earth owes its existence to lightning storms.
- Astronomy
Moon story waxes fuller
A new analysis may have put the final piece in the puzzle of how the Moon formed.
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Plants fix genes using copies from ancestors
Some plants can reinstate genes missing from their own chromosomes but that had been carried by previous generations.
- Planetary Science
Dusty rejuvenation
The Mars rover Spirit recently had its dirty solar arrays cleaned off, possibly by a dust devil, allowing the craft to generate nearly as much energy as it did when it first landed on the Red Planet in January 2004.
- Ecosystems
Quick Fix: How invasive seaweed repairs its wounds
Scientists have discerned the chemistry underlying the rapid wound-healing process in an invasive green alga that is wreaking havoc in the Mediterranean Sea.
- Astronomy
Star Packed: Super cluster is first to be detected in Milky Way
Astronomers have detected the most massive and densest cluster of young stars ever detected in the Milky Way, a finding that could shed light on how stars formed in the early universe.
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Little Brains That Could: Bees show big-time working memory
Even though a honeybee's brain could fit on the head of a match, the creature's working memory is nearly as effective as that of a pigeon or a monkey.
- Tech
Leak Locator: Ultrasound for finding holes in spacecraft
Researchers have devised a way to pinpoint leaks in spacecraft by listening to ultrasound waves traveling through the ship's hull.
