News
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Bacteria thrive by freeloading
Mutant bacteria thrive by freeloading off their hard-working kin, but these slackers revert to working normally if they become too numerous.
- Materials Science
Feet of clay, but superstrong
Gluing together nanoscale clay particles with a simple adhesive creates a strong but flexible material.
- Tech
CD players could serve as cheap lab tools
Ordinary CD disc players can be adapted to perform chemical assays and possibly medical diagnoses.
- Astronomy
Motion of two nearby galaxies clouds the picture
The Large and Small Magellanic Clouds are not gravitationally bound to the Milky Way, but are relative newcomers passing by for the first time.
- Planetary Science
Titan: Land of lakes—and drizzle
A newly assembled mosaic of radar images of Saturn's moon Titan shows what appear to be hydrocarbon lakes and seas.
- Chemistry
Platinumfree fuel cell
Cheaper than a typical hydrogen fuel cell, a new, platinumfree cell runs on a "green" liquid fuel.
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Spying Vision Cells: Eye’s motion detectors are finally found
Primates, like other mammals, possess specialized retinal cells that detect motion.
- Paleontology
Fossil mystery solved?
Experiments in a Florida swamp show how aquatic creatures can get trapped and preserved in amber, a form of hardened tree sap.
- Humans
Mice, Magnetism, and Reactions on Solids
The 2007 Nobel prizes in the sciences recognized research in genetics, materials science, and surface chemistry.
- Health & Medicine
Moving up the Charts: Drug-resistant bug invades military, civilian hospitals
Acinetobacter baumannii, a common bacterium, is becoming more virulent and drug resistant in hospitals.
- Astronomy
Sunstruck: Solar hurricanes rip comet’s tail
Images from a spacecraft show a magnetic hurricane from the sun severing a comet's ion tail.
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Shifty Talk: Probing the process of word evolution
Words change more quickly over the millennia the less frequently they are used, a quantitative result that may aid in reconstructing old languages and predicting future changes.
