News
- Archaeology
Ancient origins of fire use
Human ancestors may have learned to control fire 1.7 million years ago in eastern Africa.
- Physics
Writing with warm atoms
Researchers demonstrated that they can use a scanning tunneling microscope to position atoms in microscopic patterns at room temperature.
- 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.
- Paleontology
Telltale Dino Heart Hints at Warm Blood
A recently discovered fossil dinosaur heart is more like the heart of birds and mammals than that of crocodiles, providing further evidence that dinosaurs may have been warm-blooded.
- Health & Medicine
Boning up on calcium shouldn’t be sporadic
The gains in bone health can quickly disappear when people stop taking extra calcium.
- Astronomy
Milky Way feasts on its neighbors
Three new studies reveal that Earth's home galaxy indulged in cannibalism to assemble its visible halo, the diffuse distribution of stars that surrounds the dense core and disk of the Milky Way.
- Animals
The truth is, frogs bluff and crabs cheat
Two research teams say they've caught wild animals bluffing, only the second and third examples (outside of primate antics) ever recorded.
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Nerve connections come ready to assemble
Nerve cells seem to package key components of synapses—the specialized complexes than connect the nerve cells—and collectively ship the material to points where these complexes take shape.
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Dementia may travel lonely road in elderly
Social isolation may promote the development of Alzheimer's disease and other brain ailments among elderly people.
- Earth
Impurities clock crystal growth rates
A novel method for measuring tiny amounts of hydrogen-containing impurities allows researchers to determine growth rates along different directions in a quartz crystal.
- Health & Medicine
Breast cancer options made clearer
An inexpensive test for two proteins in the blood can indicate whether women with breast cancer that hasn't yet spread to lymph nodes are likely to face such a relapse after surgery.
- Health & Medicine
High estrogen linked to lung cancer
Estrogen receptors proliferating on tumor cells in women's lungs may account for why women seem more easily affected by the carcinogenic effects of tobacco smoke.
