News
- Animals
Flex That Bill: Hummingbirds’ surprising insect-catching style
High-speed videos of hummingbirds catching insects reveal that their lower bills are unexpectedly flexible.
- Health & Medicine
Save the Brain: Study suggests new way to treat head trauma
A compound that stimulates nerve-cell activity may help the brain recover from serious head injuries.
- Chemistry
Molecular Midwives: Small helper compounds may have spawned early tools of life on Earth
Life on Earth may have sprung into being with the assistance of tiny molecules that are remarkably adept at stitching together DNA in the lab.
- Planetary Science
Martian Methane: Carbon compound hints at life
The presence of methane in the Martian atmosphere spotlights the possibility that there might be primitive life on the Red Planet.
- Archaeology
Cat’s Cradle? New find pushes back origin of tamed felines
Archaeological finds on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus indicate that people domesticated cats by about 9,500 years ago, long before cat taming achieved prominence in ancient Egypt.
- Physics
A New Form of Water: Melting ice turns oddly dense
The density of a recently made film of water far exceeds that of ordinary water, suggesting that the film may be the first isolated sample of a proposed form of water thought to contribute to ordinary water's odd properties.
- Health & Medicine
SARS vaccine tests well in mouse model
Scientists have developed a DNA vaccine that stops the SARS infection in mice.
- Earth
Inhaling your food—and its cooking fuel
Cooking emits easily inhaled pollutants that travel throughout a home and can linger for hours.
- Anthropology
Gene implicated in apes’ brain growth
A gene with poorly understood functions began to accumulate favorable mutations around 8 million years ago and probably contributed to brain expansion in ancient apes.
- Tech
Fluid lens flows into focus
By controlling a boundary between oil and water, researchers have created a liquid lens that can quickly alter its shape in response to electric signals.
- Health & Medicine
Papillomavirus infections spike in sunny months
Getting sun could increase vulnerability to a sexually transmitted virus that may lead to cervical cancer.
- Health & Medicine
Exercise after breast cancer extends life
After a woman survives an initial bout with breast cancer, being physically active improves her odds of beating the disease over the long term.
