News
- Health & Medicine
Flies on meth burn through sugar
Cellular effects may explain why addicts often have a sweet tooth.
- Health & Medicine
Mucus-related gene tied to lung disease
People with pulmonary fibrosis are much more likely to make excess amounts of a normally beneficial protein, a study finds.
By Nathan Seppa - Life
Gut bacteria come in three flavors
Everybody has one of a trio of types — and which one seems to be less important than how the bugs behave.
- Physics
Scientists see the one-way light
Nonlinear materials that allow directional discrimination of waves could be used to make components for light-based computers.
By Devin Powell - Humans
Killing fields of ancient Syria revealed
Stone corrals were used to trap whole herds of animals for mass slaughter.
- Space
NASA pulls out of astrophysics missions
Europe is now on its own for two planned spacecraft to study black holes and gravitational waves.
By Ron Cowen - Humans
Possibly pivotal human ancestor debated
An ancient species that may have sparked the rise of humankind gets a new appraisal.
By Bruce Bower - Life
Complex life hit freshwater early
Tiny fossils in Scottish rock show that cells with nuclei had spread beyond the seas by a billion years ago.
By Susan Milius - Earth
Seismologists rumble over quake clusters
Japan tremor may be part of a second grouping of great quakes since 1900, some scientists say.
- Life
Gone fishing, orangutan-style
Apes that catch fish in ponds and eat them raise the possibility that ancient hominids did the same.
By Bruce Bower - Physics
Time travel nixed in metamaterial world
A desktop universe captures essential properties of the real thing.
By Devin Powell - Physics
How bicycles keep the rubber on the road
An international collaboration tries to explain the surprising stability of two-wheeled travel.
By Devin Powell