News
- Planetary Science
Spirit Gets Its Wheels Dirty: Mars rover begins scientific work
Spirit, the rover that landed on Mars on Jan. 3, last week began studying the rocks and soil at its landing site.
- Health & Medicine
Cluster Buster: Might a simple sugar derail Huntington’s?
A study in mice with a disease resembling Huntington's shows that a simple sugar impedes the protein aggregation that kills brain cells.
- Health & Medicine
Viruses depend on shocking proteins
To replicate within a cell, a bird virus must force the cell to make certain proteins.
- Health & Medicine
Drugs slow aging in worms
Drugs that defuse so-called free radicals lengthen a worm's life span by more than 50 percent.
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Whatever that is, it’s scary
Tammar wallabies that have lived away from mammalian predators for more than 9,000 years still seem to recognize the appearance of danger.
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Kookaburra sibling rivalry gets rough
The youngest kookaburra in the nest doesn't have a lot to laugh about.
- Astronomy
Gang of four: Debut of a big telescope
In the desert of northern Chile, a fourth 8.2-meter telescope opened for business, completing a quartet known as the Very Large Telescope.
- Astronomy
Stellar motions provide hole-y data
Measuring for the first time the acceleration of stars near the dense core of our galaxy, astronomers have obtained more precise information on the location and density of the black hole that lurks there.
- Math
Global contest nets encryption standard
A data-scrambling scheme called Rijndael was selected to become the federal government's new formula for protecting sensitive, unclassified information.
- Health & Medicine
Some psychoactive drugs ease harsh PMS
Drugs such as widely prescribed Prozac can relieve a severe form of premenstrual syndrome.
- Earth
Two microbes team up to munch methane
Aggregates of two different microorganisms in methane-bearing ocean sediments collected off the Oregon coast appear to collaborate to consume methane despite a lack of oxygen.
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Teams implicate new gene in prostate cancer
A newly discovered gene may, in rare cases, cause prostate cancer or, more commonly, raise a man's risk of developing the disease.
