News
- Animals
Snail Highways: By following trails, periwinkles save slime
A snail that follows another snail's slimy path saves energy by not having to secrete so much mucus.
- Materials Science
The New Black: A nanoscale coating reflects almost no light
A "carpet" of microscopic filaments sprayed onto a surface can prevent it from reflecting light, a potentially useful trait for technologies from solar cells to fiber-optic communications.
- Anthropology
Tools for Prey: Female chimps move to fore in hunting
For the first time, researchers have observed wild chimpanzees making and using tools to hunt other animals, a practice adopted mainly by adult females and youngsters.
- Health & Medicine
Nice Shot: Hepatitis E vaccine passes critical test
An experimental vaccine for hepatitis E has proved nearly 96 percent protective in a test in Nepalese soldiers.
- Health & Medicine
Cocoa compound increases brain blood flow
Cocoa that retains compounds usually removed to soften the product's flavor can significantly improve blood flow to the brain.
- Earth
Subglacial lakes may influence ice flow
The flow of water into and out of massive, ice-covered lakes in Antarctica may influence the speed at which the overlying glaciers move toward the sea.
- Health & Medicine
A cornea that’s got some nerve
Researchers have developed a technique to grow corneal tissue that includes nerve cells, an advance that may enable them to test consumer products in lab dishes rather than live animals.
- Health & Medicine
Fungus produces cancer drug
Several varieties of fungi that attack hazelnuts produce high quantities of the popular cancer drug paclitaxel.
- Physics
Breaking a molecule’s mirror image
The theory of entanglement explains a newly observed behavior in a symmetrical hydrogen molecule: When the molecule fractures, the directions in which its constituent particles move are not always random.
- Health & Medicine
How antipsychotic drugs can cause weight gain
A study of mice has identified a biological mechanism by which medications called atypical antipsychotics cause people to gain weight.
- Anthropology
New age for ancient Americans
New radiocarbon dates indicate that the Clovis people, long considered the first well-documented settlers of the New World, inhabited North America considerably later and for a much shorter time than previously thought.
- Chemistry
Lighting up for uranium
A portable sensor could make it possible to rapidly detect environmental uranium contamination.
