News

  1. Anthropology

    Fossil skull spurs identity dispute

    A dispute has broken out over whether a recently discovered, 7-million-year-old fossil skull represents the earliest known member of the human evolutionary family or an ancient ape.

    By Bruce Bower
  2. Earth

    Haze clears on sooty climate conditions

    The results of a new study suggest that soot plays a bigger role in regional climate changes than scientists had previously realized.

    By Jessica Gorman
  3. Physics

    Ring around the proton

    An orbiting electron accelerated to relativistic velocities by a laser in a strong magnetic field can behave like a ring-shaped electron cloud spinning around the nucleus.

    By Ivars Peterson
  4. Physics

    Writing with warm atoms

    Researchers demonstrated that they can use a scanning tunneling microscope to position atoms in microscopic patterns at room temperature.