News
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Health & Medicine
With this bait, TB won’t play possum
An oral tuberculosis vaccine, designed to help curtail the spread of the disease in wildlife populations, may also find use in people.
By Janet Raloff -
Astronomy
Physics-astronomy merger wins big
A new report recommends fostering the extraordinary collaboration taking place between particle physics and astronomy.
By Peter Weiss -
Physics
Detector spots solar chameleons
A new measurement of the sun's emission of ghostly neutrinos indicates that the prevailing theory of particle physics needs repair.
By Peter Weiss -
Health & Medicine
No benefit from screening
Two large studies confirm that a urine test for a common childhood cancer—neuroblastoma—offers no benefit.
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Boys take a tumble
A long-term study of children from grades 1 through 12 finds a disturbing tendency for boys to report much larger declines in appraisals of their academic abilities than do girls.
By Bruce Bower -
Astronomy
Sharper Images: New Hubble camera goes the distance
Astronomers have unveiled a picture of the distant universe that ranks as the sharpest and most detailed ever recorded.
By Ron Cowen -
Health & Medicine
Cancer Link Cooks Up Doubt: Heating may form potential carcinogen in food
Foods cooked at high temperatures contain large concentrations of acrylamide, a compound suspected to cause cancer in people, but researchers are cautious about acting on preliminary, unpublished data.
By Ben Harder -
Astronomy
Faded Stars Get New Role: Hubble takes a long look
By setting their sights on the galaxy's faintest stars, scientists have calculated the universe's age to be between 13 billion and 14 billion years old.
By Science News -
All Cried Out: Major depression puts lid on tears
A new study suggests that depressed individuals cry no more often in response to a sad situation than nondepressed people do.
By Bruce Bower -
Rescue Rat: Could wired rodents save the day?
Researchers have wired a rat's brain so that someone at a laptop computer can steer the animal through mazes and over rubble.
By Susan Milius -
Paleontology
Ancient Whodunit: Scientists indict wee suspects in ancient deaths
Evidence locked in 180,000-year-old sediments suggests that a toxic algae bloom was the cause of death for a large group of mammals that were fossilized intact on an ancient lake bottom.
By Sid Perkins -
Small Wonder: Microbial hitchhiker has few genes
Scientists have identified a microbe with remarkably few genes living on another microbe on the ocean floor.
By John Travis