News
- Health & Medicine
Double Credit: Iron-fortified salt cuts anemia
A form of table salt manufactured to contain iron can fight off anemia among children living in rural North Africa and could expand the role of salt fortification around the world.
By Ben Harder - Animals
Dangerous Times: Guppies don’t follow rules for old age
A study of wild guppies suggests that life in a dangerous place does not automatically push evolution toward rapid aging as previously thought.
By Susan Milius -
Crippled fungus acts as vaccine
A genetically crippled strain of yeast can vaccinate mice against deadly normal strains.
By John Travis - Health & Medicine
Drug aids destruction of lymphoma cells
The drug rituximab, when added to chemotherapy, boosts survival rates in people with diffuse B-cell lymphoma, a kind of cancer.
By Nathan Seppa - Tech
Laser Landmark: Silicon device spans technology gap
By coaxing a silicon microstructure into acting as a laser, engineers have achieved a long-sought and important step toward microchips capable of simultaneously manipulating electrons and light.
By Peter Weiss - Earth
Lemon-scented products spawn pollutants
Some fragrances used in home-care products can play a role in generating potentially harmful air pollution.
By Janet Raloff - Anthropology
Evolutionary Shrinkage: Stone Age Homo find offers small surprise
Scientists announced the discovery of the partial skeleton of a small-bodied Homo species that inhabited an eastern Indonesian island from at least 38,000 years ago until about 18,000 years ago.
By Bruce Bower - Animals
Familiar face calms stressed-out sheep
The sight of the face of a familiar sheep seems to reduce stress in troubled sheep.
By Susan Milius - Tech
Wee wires that can crawl
Self-propelled strands of a muscle protein coated with gold offer a way to arrange and control the nanoworld.
By Peter Weiss - Animals
When bluebirds fight, bet on the bluest
The male bluebirds with the bluest (and most ultraviolet) plumage turned out to be the toughest competitors in a study of who won the rights to prime nest boxes.
By Susan Milius - Health & Medicine
COX-2 inhibitor pulled off market
Merck's recall of rofecoxib, a COX-2 inhibitor drug for arthritis, raises the question of whether similar drugs might also increase the risk of heart attack.
By Nathan Seppa - Tech
Tracing the origin of Genesis’ crash
The upside-down installation of four switches intended to signal the Genesis spacecraft to open its parachutes is the likely cause of the craft's crash in the Utah desert on Sept. 8.
By Ron Cowen