News
- Health & Medicine
Cancer cells on the move
A new study suggests how a gene recently linked to liver, skin, and pancreatic cancer also causes an often-deadly form of breast cancer.
- Earth
Problems with eradicating polio
The oral vaccine's live but attenuated virus may in rare cases revert to the disease-causing form, which can then turn up in natural waters even in regions now certified free of the wild-type virus.
- Earth
Infectious stowaways
A new study finds that ballast water can move huge quantities of cholera germs and other microbes between ports around the globe.
- Plants
Lowering lilies on the tree of life
Water lilies may belong on the lowest branch of the family tree of flowering plants, along with a shrub called Amborella.
- Chemistry
Chemistry Catches Cocaine at Source
Scientists have devised a method for identifying cocaine's geographical origin by determining the chemical signatures of five distinct coca-growing regions in the Andes.
- Earth
New database describes all the marbles
Analyses of the isotope ratios of carbon and oxygen in hundreds of samples of Greek marble may help researchers identify the quarries that supplied the stone for some of Europe's most famous statues and architecture.
- Health & Medicine
Gene therapy might keep arteries open
Tiny steel-mesh tubes coated with a DNA-containing polymer could prevent arteries from becoming reclogged after cardiovascular treatment.
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Untreated schizophrenia may spare brain
Contrary to the fears of some researchers, treatment delays for schizophrenia may not worsen brain deficits associated with the mental disorder.
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Wild tobacco heeds ‘ouch’ from sagebrush
Biologists studying wild tobacco and sagebrush say they have found a case of interspecies plant communication in the field.
- Astronomy
Variable quasar may help measure the cosmos
A flickering cosmic mirage, recorded for the first time in X rays, promises to provide a new estimate of how rapidly the universe is expanding.
- Health & Medicine
Path to heart health is one with a peel
Consuming lots of oranges and other citrus fruits, or their juices, can trigger beneficial, cholesterol-moderating changes in the blood.
- Tech
Chair becomes personalized posture coach
Pressure imprints made by a person in a chair provide a new type of computer input useful for tracking posture or, perhaps, other clues to someone's activities and state of mind.
