News
- Tech
Robots making robots, with some help
A new type of robotic system that designs and produces robotic offspring may represent a first step toward self-replicating "artificial life."
- Computing
Resistance leaps as magnetism mounts
A tiny traffic island for electrons promises to serve as an extraordinarily sensitive detector of magnetic fields.
- Archaeology
Ancient Site Holds Cannibalism Clues
An 800-year-old Anasazi site in Colorado yields contested evidence of cannibalism.
- Astronomy
Telescope unveils a stellar deception
A heavenly masquerade may shed light on the nature of astrophysical jets—the beams of material spewed by a wide variety of celestial objects.
- Earth
Girls may face risks from phthalates
The high incidence of premature breast development in Puerto Rican girls has been linked with phthalates, a family of ubiquitous pollutants found in plastics, lubricants, and solvents.
- Materials Science
Cathedral has weathered London’s acid rain
A decrease in acid rain seems to be responsible for newly reported reduced deterioration rates of St. Paul's Cathedral in London.
- Paleontology
Teeth tell tale of warm-blooded dinosaurs
Evidence locked within the fossil teeth of some dinosaurs may help bolster the view that some of the animals were, at least to some degree, warm-blooded.
- Health & Medicine
Can poliovirus fix spinal cord damage?
Scientists have devised a version of the poliovirus that can deliver genes to motor neurons without harming them, a step toward a gene therapy that reawakens idle neurons in people with spinal cord damage.
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Genetic variation sways risk of diabetes
A gene carried by up to 85 percent of the people in the world increases susceptibility to diabetes by about 25 percent.
- Animals
Strange Y chromosome makes supermom mice
An otherwise rare system of sex determination has evolved independently at least six times in one genus of South American mice.
- Astronomy
Taking a census of brown dwarfs
Researchers have completed the most thorough census to date of brown dwarfs in stellar clusters and have confirmed earlier findings about these failed stars.
- Astronomy
A new receiver for alien broadcasts
A $12.5 million grant will help build the world's largest telescope designed to search for radio broadcasts from alien civilizations.
