News
- Health & Medicine
Flu vaccine seems to work for kids under 6 months of age
Babies younger than 6 months appear fully capable of responding to a flu shot.
By Nathan Seppa - Health & Medicine
Dengue strikes United States
Texas has been hit with the first-ever outbreak of dengue hemorrhagic fever in the continental United States.
By Nathan Seppa - Animals
Ivory-billed hopes flit to Florida
There's no photo, but a team of ornithologists says that its sightings suggest that a few ivory-billed woodpeckers still live along the Choctawhatchee River in Florida.
By Susan Milius - Physics
Electromagnetism could ease the flow in oil pipelines
A few minutes of exposure to a magnetic or electric field sharply reduces crude oil's viscosity for hours at a time.
By Peter Weiss -
Itsy bitsy genome
Researchers have sequenced the smallest genome yet discovered, a string of DNA belonging to a species of bacterium that lives inside sap-eating insects' guts.
- Astronomy
Feeling the heat of an extrasolar planet
Astronomers have measured the temperature variation between the lit and unlit sides of a planet outside the solar system.
By Ron Cowen - Health & Medicine
Prep Work: Bird-flu vaccine might work better with primer
Giving people a vaccine against an existing form of avian influenza might help them respond better when given a shot for a future strain of the virus during a pandemic.
By Nathan Seppa - Astronomy
Assault on Andromeda: Nearby galaxy had recent collision
New findings suggest that a small galaxy recently plunged into Andromeda, opening a new window on collisions that are rare today but were common in the early universe.
By Ron Cowen - Physics
Vanishing Actor: Physicists unveil first invisibility cloak
The first functional invisibility cloak, which operates at microwave frequencies, has emerged from the laboratory.
By Peter Weiss -
Quirky Cardiology: Crocs’ hearts may aid their digestion
The crocodile's ability to direct oxygen-depleted blood to its stomach may be instrumental in digesting large, bony meals.
By Ben Harder - Chemistry
Back on the Table? Element 118 is served up again
A team of nuclear chemists from the United States and Russia have announced the brief reappearance of element 118.
- Planetary Science
A sunrise view of Mars
The first high-resolution images sent by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter support the notion that water once flowed across much of the Red Planet.