News
- Health & Medicine
Antibiotic for Huntington’s disease?
In mice genetically engineered to develop an illness similar to Huntington's disease, the drug minocycline significantly delays the onset of symptoms and death.
By John Travis - Health & Medicine
Microbes implicated in heart disease
Viruses and bacteria besides chlamydia may play a role in human heart disease through an immune reaction to a heartlike protein they produce.
By John Travis - Health & Medicine
Genes of cholera germ deciphered
The bacterium that causes cholera has nearly 4,000 genes on its two circular chromosomes.
By John Travis -
Feedback matters for getting the joke
Plausible information about how others react to jokes colors a college student's own perception of the humor value of the material.
By Ruth Bennett -
In gauging beauty, congeniality counts
People judge others who have positive personality traits by more lenient physical criteria for attractiveness than they do those about whom they have no personality information.
By Ruth Bennett -
Older isn’t wiser in moral reasoning
Researchers find more endorsement of immanent justice, the belief that the natural world punishes human misdeeds, among college students than sixth-graders.
By Ruth Bennett -
Out of China: SARS virus’ genome hints at independent evolution
The newly identified SARS virus is the product of a long and private evolutionary history, clues from its genome suggest.
By Ben Harder - Materials Science
Blunt Answer: Cracking the puzzle of elastic solids’ toughness
Rubbery materials prove tougher than theory predicts because cracks trying to penetrate those stretchy materials grow blunt at their tips.
By Peter Weiss - Materials Science
Bone Fix: New material responds to growing tissue
A new scaffolding material stimulates bone regeneration.
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Genetic Clue to Aging? Mutation causes early-aging syndrome
A gene defect that causes accelerated aging may provide insight into normal aging.
By John Travis - Earth
Feel the Heat: Rain forests may slow their growth in warmer world
During a long-term research project in a Central American rain forest, mature trees grew more slowly in warm years than they did in cooler ones.
By Sid Perkins -
Fig-Wasp Upset: Classic partnership isn’t so tidy after all
Genetic analysis suggests that a textbook example of a tight buddy system in nature—fig species that supposedly each have their own pollinating wasp species—may need to be rewritten.
By Susan Milius