News
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Looking for osteoporosis in spit
A dentist has found three compounds in saliva that could be used to gauge bone loss.
By Janet Raloff -
Astronomy
Searching for a lost craft
A recent Department of Defense analysis of images of the Red Planet may have located a lost spacecraft on Mars, but NASA says the images could just be electronic noise.
By Ron Cowen -
Astronomy
Probes find a new plume on Io
Two spacecraft jointly eyeing Jupiter's moon Io, the most volcanically active body in the solar system, have spotted a towering new plume.
By Ron Cowen -
Earth
Lasers show atmosphere differs from models
New observations of the middle and upper atmosphere over Earth's polar regions may require scientists to revamp their mathematical models of temperature and other environmental conditions at high altitudes.
By Sid Perkins -
Tapeworms tell tales of deeper human past
A new analysis of tapeworm history suggests that people have been wrong about where we picked up pests: It was not domestication of cattle and pigs but increased meat eating in Africa.
By Susan Milius -
Health & Medicine
Immune cells rush to gut in food allergy
In mice, allergic reactions to food coincide with an accumulation of white blood cells called eosinophils in the small intestine.
By Nathan Seppa -
Tech
Optical biopsy hunts would-be cancers
A new optical tool allows physicians to scout for precancerous tissue by analyzing the fluorescent responses of cells when light is shone on them.
By Janet Raloff -
Astronomy
A comet’s odd orbit hints at hidden planet
Far beyond the solar system's nine known planets, a body as massive as Mars may once have been part of our planetary system, and it might still be there.
By Ron Cowen -
Fungi slay insects and feed host plants
Researchers are discovering that some plants get their nutrients by robbing nitrogen from the flesh of soil-dwelling insects.
By Linda Wang -
RNA world gets support as prelife scenario
Scientists tinkering with a chemical now vital to life think they've recreated one of the central molecules that gave rise to the chemistry of life.
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Anthropology
Early Brazilians Unveil African Look
Prehistoric human skulls found in Brazil share some traits with modern Africans, leading a Brazilian scientist to theorize that Africans rather than Asians first arrived in the Americas sometime before 11,000 years ago.
By Bruce Bower -
Do eggs go cuckoo under UV light?
People don't see ultraviolet light but birds do, so studies of egg mimickry may need to stop relying so much on human vision.
By Susan Milius