News
- Math
Proof clarifies a map-folding problem
Researchers have developed an efficient algorithm to determine, given a collection of creases on a piece of paper, whether a sequence of simple folds produces a flat result, like a folded road map.
- Animals
Birds may inherit their taste for the town
Tests switching cliff swallow nestlings to colonies of different sizes suggest the birds inherit their preference for group size.
- Health & Medicine
Drugs counteract irritable bowel syndrome
Antibiotics can knock out bacteria overload in the small intestine, temporarily reversing irritable bowel syndrome.
- Earth
Salmon puzzle: Why did males turn female?
Most of the spawning female Chinook salmon in one part of the Columbia River appear to have started life as males.
- Planetary Science
Ganymede May Have Vast Hidden Ocean
A combination of images, spectra, and magnetic field measurements suggests that in addition to Jupiter's moon Europa, another Jovian moon, Ganymede, may also have had—and might still harbor—an ocean.
- Archaeology
Pompeii’s burial not its first disaster
Recent excavations reveal that the city of Pompeii, famed for its burial by an eruption of Italy's Mt. Vesuvius in A.D. 79, experienced several devastating landslides in the centuries preceding its demise.
- Earth
Dead zones may record river floods
Microorganisms that live in seafloor sediments deposited beneath periodically anoxic waters near the mouths of rivers could chronicle the years when those rivers flooded for extended periods.
- Earth
Lead’s a moving target at rifle ranges
The lead used in bullets and shotgun pellets can be a threat to the environment near rifle ranges but many of its hazards are manageable.
- Physics
Spinning Earth drags space
Slight deviations of two Earth-circling satellites from their expected orbits appear to confirm a curious prediction from Einstein's relativity theory.
- Chemistry
Cleaning up anthrax
Chemists have developed catalysts that spur common oxidants to quickly destroy germs, including deadly anthrax spores.
- Astronomy
Belt Tightening: Icy orbs are surprisingly small
Objects in the distant reservoir of comets known as the Kuiper belt are intrinsically much brighter, and therefore smaller, than previously thought.
- Health & Medicine
Lingering Loss: In 2-year diet trial, new pill keeps off weight
Obese adults who lose weight during a year of taking an experimental diet drug, rimonabant, and dieting keep the weight off during the following year, if they continue the regimen.
