News
- Earth
Germy with a chance of hail
Aerial microbes can trigger precipitation and may influence global warming.
- Chemistry
Natural pain-killing chemical synthesized
Conolidine — a headache to isolate from the plant that makes it — can now be produced from scratch in the lab, opening the promising compound to study.
- Life
Tarantulas shoot silk from their feet
The unique ability may give the heavy spiders a better grip and prevent deadly falls.
- Psychology
Geometric minds skip school
Villagers' understanding of lines and triangles raises questions about how people learn the properties of objects in space.
- Life
Suspect bacterium may trigger Parkinson’s
A study in mice shows that H. pylori, the microbe that causes stomach ulcers, may also affect the brain.
- Physics
Rogue waves captured
Re-creating tiny versions of these monster swells in a laboratory tank reveals their mathematical underpinnings.
- Health & Medicine
Don’t share that clarinet
Bacteria can linger on woodwind instruments, particularly those with reeds, for days, a new study finds.
- Space
Milky Way may get an extension
A newly discovered feature at its fringes suggests the galaxy is an uncommon beauty: One half appears to be nearly a mirror image of the other.
- Life
Your gut microbes are what you eat
A mammal's diet strongly influences what kinds of microorganisms live in its intestines.
- Psychology
Eyes take gossip to heart
Reading negative gossip about someone makes that person’s face easier to perceive.
- Life
Numbers flap has minor implications for global extinctions
A statistical technique used to estimate rates of species disappearance is flawed, two ecologists charge — but not enough to invalidate recent dire assessments.
- Humans
Geographic profiling fights disease
Widely used to snare serial criminals, a forensic method finds application in epidemiology.
