News
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Gene variations police the storage of fat
Researchers have uncovered genetic variations controlling a calorie-draining spigot in the body.
- Earth
Salmon hatcheries can deplete wild stocks
Hatchery fish appear to be replacing wild salmon populations in the Columbia River.
By Janet Raloff - Planetary Science
Asteroid Eros poses a magnetic puzzle
Measurements with a magnetometer aboard the NEAR-Shoemaker spacecraft a few days after it landed on the asteroid 433 Eros confirmed a major puzzle: The rock has no detectable magnetic field.
By Ron Cowen -
Insects deploy sticky feet with precision
Sticky ant and bee footpads retract and unfold in time with insect steps, so the insects don't trip over their own sticky feet.
- Health & Medicine
Does breast-feeding accelerate AIDS?
A study of HIV-infected mothers in Kenya suggests that breast-feeding places them at a health risk.
By Nathan Seppa - Chemistry
Molecular Chemistry Takes a New Twist
New calculations show that a basic tenet of chemistry is wrong: Ethane forms its most stable structure not due to so-called steric effects, but because of a quantum mechanical influence.
- Physics
Stretching and twisting a bright idea
A new, stretchy type of liquid-crystal component makes it possible to change a laser's color by simply pulling on the membrane—a much easier, cheaper means of adjustment than that used for today's complex and expensive tunable lasers.
By Peter Weiss - Physics
In a squeeze, nitrogen gets chunky
Remarkable already for being a semiconductor and, perhaps, an explosive, a new, solid form of nitrogen made by crushing the ordinary gas to the highest pressures ever also stands out because it continues to survive when the pressure is released.
By Peter Weiss - Physics
Electrons trip on tiny semiconductor steps
A first glimpse of how a semiconductor's surface alters electrons' magnetic fields, or spins, suggests that tiny steps in the surfaces are tripping up efforts to create so-called spintronics circuits from semiconductors.
By Peter Weiss - Health & Medicine
Genetic flaw found in painful gut disease
Scientists have discovered a genetic mutation that occurs in people with Crohn's disease, a digestive disorder that attacks the intestines.
By Nathan Seppa -
Slave-making ants get rough in New York
The whole ant slave-making business turns more violent in New York than in West Virginia, even though it features the same species.
By Susan Milius - Health & Medicine
Poliovirus slaughters brain tumors in mice
Scientists have altered a live polio virus, inducing it to target and kill brain tumor cells without causing polio.