News
- Astronomy
Votes cast for and against the WIMP factor
Physicists this week duked it out over a bunch of WIMPs, elementary particles that—if they exist—could solve a decades-old mystery in cosmology and help unify the four fundamental forces of nature.
- Chemistry
Power plants: Algae churn out hydrogen
Green algae can produce hydrogen, a clean-burning fuel that could one day power pollution-free cars.
- Physics
Manhandled molecules, midget memories
A thick coating of organic chemicals can record information at densities potentially a million times greater than is possible with current compact disk technology.
- Archaeology
Vase shows that ancients dug fossils, too
A painting on an ancient Corinthian vase may be the first record of a fossil find.
- Animals
New frog-killing disease may not be so new
The skin disease that savaged amphibians in remote wildernesses in the 1990s has been linked to outbreaks in the 1970s.
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Shotgun approach bags the fruit fly genome
Scientists announced the completion of the Drosophila genome-sequencing project.
- Health & Medicine
Marrow Can Hide Breast Cancer Cells
Breast cancer patients who have stray cancer cells in bone marrow are more likely to die of cancer or have a recurrence of cancer elsewhere in the body than are breast cancer patients not harboring such cells.
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All about Me: Left brain may shine spotlight on self
Experiments with a split-brain patient suggest that left-hemisphere structures contribute to the conscious understanding of oneself.
- Animals
What’s the Mane Point? Foes and females both have role
The condition of a lion's mane apparently advertises high-quality mates to picky females and wards off male adversaries.
- Materials Science
A Cut above the Ordinary: Low-tech machining yields coveted nanostructure
A new finding that machining of metals imparts a hard, fine-grained structure to turnings and other scraps may lead to less costly but more durable parts for cars and other applications.
- Physics
Peer Pressure in Numbers: Physicists model the power of social sway
A mathematical model of peer-influenced behavior may help explain some unexpected patterns that have been observed in financial data and bird populations.
- Planetary Science
Lost in Space: Comet mission appears to have broken apart
A spacecraft that had just begun its journey to two comets has fallen silent and may have broken apart.
