News

  1. Health & Medicine

    Tests may better detect prostate cancer

    Two novel tests for prostate cancer may help physicians catch this disease earlier and with far fewer false alarms.

    By
  2. Planetary Science

    A Comet’s Long Tail Tickles Ulysses

    Stretching more than half a billion kilometers, the ion tail that Comet Hyakutake flaunted when it passed near the sun in 1996 is the longest ever recorded and suggests that otherwise invisible comets could be detected by searching for their tails.

    By
  3. Physics

    Nanotubes get into gear for new roll

    Atoms on the surface of carbon nanotubes appear to mesh when tubes roll across a graphite surface, making the tubes possible atomic-scale gears, which have been long-sought in nanotechnology.

    By
  4. Physics

    Devilish polygons speak of past stress

    A new theory and a simple test with cornstarch and water may help explain the polygonal geometry of rock columns in the Devil's Postpile in California and elsewhere.

    By
  5. Paleontology

    Dinosaurs, party of six, meat eating

    The bones of six carnivorous dinosaurs discovered in a fossil bed in Patagonia may indicate that big, meat-eating dinosaurs were social creatures.

    By
  6. Paleontology

    Fossil gets a leg up on snake family tree

    A 95-million-year-old fossil snake with legs may be an advanced big-mouthed snake, not a primitive ancestor.

    By
  7. Math

    Random packing of spheres

    A new definition of random packing allows a more consistent and mathematically precise approach to characterizing disordered arrangements of identical spheres.

    By
  8. Math

    Orbiting in a figure-eight loop

    Three gravitationally interacting bodies of equal mass can, according to precise calculations, trace out a figure-eight-shape orbit in space.

    By
  9. Fading to black doesn’t empower fish

    Field studies of three-spined stickleback fish dash a textbook example of the theory of how one species can take on a competitor's characteristics.

    By
  10. Hey, we’re richer than we thought!

    The latest inventory of life in the United States has turned up an extra 100,000 species of plants, animals, and fungi.

    By
  11. Earth

    Titanic iceberg sets sail from Antarctica

    An iceberg about the size of Connecticut recently split off from the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica.

    By
  12. Planetary Science

    Reviewers see red over recent Mars programs

    NASA's two most recent missions to Mars failed because they were underfunded, managed by inexperienced people, and insufficiently tested, according to a report released March 28.

    By