News
- Physics
Water circling a drain provides insight into black holes
Water waves scattering off a vortex can exhibit rotational superradiance, an effect predicted to appear in black holes.
- Physics
Faux particles commit physics faux pas
Quasiparticles present in a solid material break the rules of particle physics.
- Health & Medicine
Therapy flags DNA typos to rev cancer-fighting T cells
Genetic tests help identify cancer patients who will benefit from immune therapy.
- Paleontology
Primitive whales had mediocre hearing
Fossils suggest that early whale hearing was run-of-the-mill, along the same line as that of land mammals.
- Climate
Climate change might help pests resist corn’s genetic weapon
Rising temperatures may allow pests to eat corn that is genetically modified to produce an insect-killing toxin.
By Susan Milius - Humans
For humans, the appeal of looking at faces starts before birth
New research suggests that 8-month-old fetuses, like newborns, are particularly interested in looking at faces.
- Anthropology
Oldest known Homo sapiens fossils come from northern Africa, studies claim
Moroccan fossils proposed as oldest known H. sapiens, from around 300,000 years ago.
By Bruce Bower - Astronomy
Einstein’s light-bending by single far-off star detected
A measurement so precise Einstein thought it couldn't be done has demonstrated his most famous theory on a star outside the solar system for the first time.
- Life
When it comes to the flu, the nose has a long memory
Mice noses have specialty immune cells with long memories.
- Health & Medicine
When preventing HIV, bacteria in the vagina matter
Vaginal bacteria affect how well microbicide gels used to prevent HIV work.
- Neuroscience
Brains encode faces piece by piece
Cells in monkey brains build up faces by coding for different characteristics.
- Physics
LIGO snags another set of gravitational waves
Two black holes stirred up the third set of gravitational waves ever detected.