News
- Cosmology
Gravitational wave discovery gives way to Milky Way dust
New polarization maps from the Planck satellite suggest that the BICEP2 announcement this year of primordial gravitational waves might be due entirely to dust in our galaxy.
- Health & Medicine
Statins may improve odds of surviving a bleeding stroke
Common cholesterol-lowering drugs called statins may help people who have suffered a stroke caused by ruptured blood vessels.
- Neuroscience
Dyslexic brain may solve some math problems in a roundabout way
Children with dyslexia rely heavily on right brain to do addition problems.
- Tech
Hopping robot powered by explosions
A soft-bodied robot that can jump with the help of an explosion could one day aid search-and-rescue operations.
- Environment
Crops take up drugs from recycled water
Plants irrigated with recycled wastewater can soak up tiny amounts of pharmaceutical compounds but what this means for human health is unclear.
- Plants
Borrowed genes raise hopes for fixing “slow and confused” plant enzyme
Inserting some bacterial Rubisco chemistry into a plant might one day boost photosynthesis and help raise crop yields.
- Astronomy
Enormous black hole resides at core of tiny galaxy
A small galaxy stores 15 percent of its mass in a black hole, suggesting compact galaxies might be shreds of once larger galaxies.
- Earth
Shrinking ancient sea may have spawned Sahara Desert
The Saharan Desert probably formed 7 million years ago as the ancient Tethys Sea, the forerunner of the Mediterranean Sea, shrank.
- Materials Science
Making metamaterials ‘digital’ could simplify invisibility cloaks
The digital world of 1s and 0s has inspired a simpler way to make complex metamaterials.
- Life
Artificial sweeteners may tip scales toward metabolic problems
The artificial sweetener saccharin meddles with the gut’s microbial community, setting in motion metabolic changes associated with obesity and diabetes.
- Astronomy
Tweak to dark matter may explain Milky Way mystery
Dark matter weakly interacting with light in the early universe might have prevented satellite galaxies from forming around Milky Way, astronomers propose.
- Tech
Hydrogen made using sunlight, cheap materials
Photosynthesis-inspired fuel cell uses water to make hydrogen gas and could feature in next-generation cars.
