News
- Earth
Increase in chemical disposals
Industrial facilities in the United States released more than 4 billion pounds of chemicals into the environment in 2005, according to the Environmental Protection Agency's Toxics Release Inventory.
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Psychotherapy aids bipolar treatment
Any of three forms of psychotherapy enhances emotional stability in people with bipolar disorder who already receive standard medications for that severe psychiatric ailment.
- Anthropology
Disinherited Ancestor: Lucy’s kind may occupy evolutionary side branch
A controversial analysis of a recently discovered jaw from a 3-million-year-old Australopithecus afarensis puts Lucy's species on an evolutionary side branch that eventually died out.
- Health & Medicine
Agents of Metastasis: Four proteins conspire in breast cancer spread
Four proteins work together to assist cancer growth and metastasis, and drugs against them inhibit both processes, tests in mice suggest.
- Physics
Quantum Capture: Photosynthesis tries many paths at once
The wavelike behavior of energy in chlorophyll might explain how plants are so efficient at using solar energy.
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Female Stem Cells Flourish: Sex difference could affect therapies
Certain adult stem cells from female mice regenerate better than those from males, indicating that not all stem cells are created equal.
- Paleontology
Ancient Extract: T. rex fossil yields recognizable protein
New analyses of a Tyrannosaurus rex leg bone reveal substantial remnants of proteins that strengthen the link between modern birds and dinosaurs.
- Health & Medicine
Bug versus Bug: Insect virus makes a viable flu vaccine
A new influenza vaccine churned out by caterpillar cells infected with a genetically engineered virus effectively prevents the flu.
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Primate’s Progress: Macaque genome is usefully different
A group of 35 labs has unveiled a draft of the genome of the rhesus macaque, the most widely used laboratory primate and a cousin to people.
- Chemistry
Gene dispensers
A new gene therapy technique releases genetic material from successive nanoscale layers of DNA as sheets of polyester that hold them in place slowly degrade.
- Materials Science
Color-tunable sunglasses
Engineers have developed sunglasses that can change from dark, filtering hues to clear—and back—at the flip of a switch.
- Health & Medicine
New agent to spy clogged arteries
To improve the detection of harmful arterial plaques, researchers have modeled a nanoparticle on a natural material: good cholesterol.
