News
- Humans
Machu Picchu’s far-flung residents
A new chemical analysis of skeletons at the Inca site of Machu Picchu strengthens the idea that the royal estate was maintained by retainers who had been uprooted from homes throughout the empire.
- Planetary Science
Water’s role in Martian chemistry becoming clearer
As mission nears end, Phoenix Mars Lander finds strong evidence for minerals similar to those formed on Earth by liquid water.
- Space
Hubble suddenly quiet
Updated September 30: After the orbiting observatory suddenly stopped transmitting data, NASA announced planned repair mission will be delayed at least until early next year
- Paleontology
Forget bird-brained
Scientists have uncovered a new dinosaur that breathed like a bird.
- Life
Curtain drops after ants’ final act
A handful of ants remain outside to close the colony door at sunset and sacrifice their lives in the act.
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Largest known prime number found
Featured Math Trek column: The Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search, a cooperative computing project, helps find a prime that has nearly 13 million digits.
- Space
With a twinkle, pulsating stars could deliver signals from E.T.
Neutrino beams may turn Cepheids into messengers for advanced alien civilizations.
- Space
Galaxies on the move
Scientists discover "dark flow" -- the unexplained streaming of galactic clusters across the universe.
- Humans
The first sound bites
During the 1908 presidential race, Taft and Bryan sounded off in a new way as use of the phonograph got serious.
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Gene therapy tool would target free radicals
New method would make the most of the balance between the good and bad of free radicals, offering a potential treatment for cardiovascular diseases.
- Earth
Tough meteorite made a big impact
The stony meteorite that landed in a remote portion of Peru in September 2007 was traveling abnormally fast when it struck and blasted a crater that was unusually large for the its size, new analyses indicate.
- Life
X chromosome is extra diverse
Men who father children with multiple women are responsible for “extra” diversity on the X chromosome, a new study of six different populations suggests.
