News
- Earth
Lawn Agent Cues Embryo Shortfall: Herbicide weeds out mice in the womb
Minuscule amounts of over-the-counter weed killers impair reproduction in mice.
- Astronomy
Hefty Discovery: Finding a Kuiper belt king
A newly discovered celestial body appears to be the largest object that scientists have found in the solar system since their detection of Pluto in 1930.
- Humans
Physics for Sale: Collectors snap up pricey historical materials
Documents detailing the rise of modern physics and Albert Einstein's development of the general theory of relativity have sold at an auction for nearly $1.8 million.
- Health & Medicine
Attention Loss: ADHD may lower volume of brain
Brain-scan data show that the brains of children diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder are slightly smaller than those of their peers who are free of psychiatric disorders.
- Health & Medicine
Inducing eye-tumor cells to self-destruct
By restarting the subdued self-destruct signal in cancer cells, researchers studying eye cancers have found a way to stop these cancers in cell cultures and in a rabbit model.
- Health & Medicine
Move your head, hurt your golf game
Right-handed golfers using a conventional grip move their head and eyes more during putts than they do when using a cross-handed or one-handed grip, suggesting these alternative grips might work better.
- Humans
Rare animals get U.N. protection
Several types of whales, river dolphins, the great white shark, and an unusual camel are among animals designated to receive new or heightened protection under a United Nations treaty.
- Health & Medicine
Making the optic nerve sprout anew
A compound made during inflammation, a natural reaction to injury, can induce optic nerve regeneration in a lab-dish concoction including rat retinal ganglion cells.
- Health & Medicine
Catching macular degeneration early
Scientists have developed a test that uses the eye's ability to adapt to darkness as a test for age-related macular degeneration, the most common cause of blindness in elderly people.
- Animals
That special wax lasts after courtship
Sandpipers' special wax for their wings during the breeding season may have less to do with courting a mate and more to do with sitting on eggs.
- Health & Medicine
Stressing out
A gene variant reduces people's response to the stress hormone cortisol, and people with the variant are less likely to have risk factors for heart disease and diabetes.
- Archaeology
Maya warfare takes 10 steps forward
The discovery of hieroglyphic-covered steps on the side of a Maya pyramid has yielded new information about warfare between two competing city-states around 1,500 years ago.
