News
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Tales from the crypts: Cells battle germs
Inhabiting tiny pits in the small intestine, so-called Paneth cells defend other cells in these crypts by discharging bacteria-killing bursts of enzymes and other molecules.
- Health & Medicine
Do more infections mean less asthma?
Young infants kept out of day care and having no more than one older sibling are significantly more likely to develop asthma than are babies who have greater exposure to other children.
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Promiscuity in guppies has its virtues
Mating with multiple partners benefits the female Trinidadian guppy and her offspring by reducing gestation time and producing youngsters more adept at forming protective schools and at evading capture.
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Nausea drug may aid alcoholism treatment
A drug that lowers the activity of serotonin and other chemical messengers in the brain may boost the effectiveness of psychological treatments for a severe form of alcoholism.
- Earth
Cars’ ammonia may sabotage tailpipe gains
Though cars' catalytic converters clean up some of the acidic contributors to urban haze and particulates pollution, a subset of these pollution-control devices seems to foster the production of ammonia, another pivotal ingredient in haze and particulates.
- Animals
Toothy valves control crocodile hearts
The odd cog teeth of the crocodile heart may be the first cardiac valve known to control blood flow actively.
- Chemistry
HArF! Argon’s not so noble after all
Researchers have for the first time coerced argon into forming a stable and neutral compound with other elements.
- Computing
Computation Takes a Quantum Leap
A quantum computation involving a custom-built molecule furnishes experimental evidence that a quantum computer can solve certain mathematical problems more efficiently than can a conventional computer.
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Egg’s missing proteins thwart primate cloning
Scientists have identified a reason why cloning a person may be difficult, if not impossible.
- Physics
Not even bismuth-209 lasts forever
Touted in textbooks as the heaviest stable, naturally occurring isotope, bismuth-209 actually does decay but with an astonishingly long half-life of 19 billion billion years.
- Earth
Harbor waves yield secrets to analysis
New findings by ocean scientists may help port officials in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, predict potentially destructive waves in the city's harbor.
- Tech
Tipping tiny scales
A prototype detector based on a tiny silicon cantilever that operates in air has achieved a 1,000-fold sensitivity boost when measuring tiny quantities of chemical agents.
