News
- Animals
Honeybee mobs smother big hornets
Honeybees gang up on an attacking hornet, killing it by blocking its breathing.
- Health & Medicine
Exhaust fumes might threaten people’s hearts
Nanoparticles in diesel fumes thwart proteins that dissolve blood clots, perhaps increasing the risk of heart attacks.
- Physics
Not flipping out
A single atom on a surface has favored magnetic orientations that could allow it to encode a data bit.
- Tech
Nanotube Press: Printing technique makes nanotransistors
A new technique for printing networks of carbon nanotubes on a wide range of surfaces is a step toward mass production of nanotubes devices.
- Paleontology
Bumpy Bones: Fossil hints that dinosaur had feathery forearms
A series of knobs on the forearm bone of a 1.5-meter-long velociraptor provides the first direct evidence of substantial feathers on a dinosaur of that size.
- Planetary Science
Muddying the Water? Orbiter drains confidence from fluid story of Mars
New images of Mars diminish the evidence that liquid water has flowed on some parts of the planet, but bolster the case in other places.
- Chemistry
Nanotherapy: Gold-drug combo could target tumors
Clusters of paclitaxel molecules attached to gold nanoparticles could deliver a safer and more effective chemotherapy punch to tumors.
- Animals
Hybrid Power: Salamander invader ups survival of rare cousin
Mixed offspring of the endangered California tiger salamander and an invasive cousin survive better than either pure-bred species, raising tricky questions for conservationists.
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Aiding and Abetting: A longevity gene also promotes cancer
A gene that normally helps cells overcome stress can also promote cancer, perhaps offering a new target for cancer treatment.
- Anthropology
Walking Small: Humanlike legs took Homo out of Africa
Newly discovered fossils, 1.77 million years old, show that the earliest known human ancestors to leave Africa for Asia possessed humanlike legs, feet, and spines, but strikingly small brains and primitive arms.
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One tall gene
The first reported gene for height can account for almost a centimeter of difference among people who have different versions of it.
- Earth
Meteor dust layers taint Antarctic ice
Two layers of deep Antarctic ice, each hundreds of thousands of years old, are rich in meteoritic dust.
