News
- Animals
Family Tree: An arboreal genome is sequenced
Researchers have sequenced the genome of a tree for the first time.
- Anthropology
Scripted Stone: Ancient block may bear Americas’ oldest writing
A slab of stone found by road builders in southern Mexico may contain the oldest known writing in the Americas, although some scientists regard the nearly 3,000-year-old inscriptions cautiously.
- Health & Medicine
Weapon against MS: Transplant drug limits nerve damage
An immune-suppressing drug called fingolimod slows multiple sclerosis relapses in patients.
- Earth
Link between El Niños and droughts in India
Scientists have discovered a correlation between droughts in India and a particular type of El Niño, the climate phenomenon marked by increased sea-surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific.
- Tech
Cyber attack depletes cell phone batteries
In a new type of cyber attack, assailants using computers connected to the Internet can secretly induce distant cell phones to rapidly deplete their batteries.
- Humans
Undergrad science and engineering are broadly useful
Although they aren’t researchers, the majority of people who earned bachelor’s degrees in science and engineering at least 10 years ago find their knowledge of those fields useful in their current workplaces. The findings, which come from an analysis of three national databases of college graduates, were reported in August by Mark C. Regets of […]
- Chemistry
Compounds pass the smell test
A vile-smelling but versatile class of compounds may find a role in more chemistry laboratories with the introduction of easily made, inoffensive versions. Isonitriles, chemicals characterized by a triple bond between a carbon and a nitrogen atom, are useful in many reactions. But many chemists have shunned them because of their pungency, says Michael C. […]
- Humans
Women: Where are your patents?
Business-school researchers find a big gender gap among academic life scientists in patenting rates.
- Health & Medicine
Forewarning of preeclampsia
Scientists have found an early warning sign of preeclampsia, a pregnancy complication marked by high blood pressure. Pregnant women with too much of a protein called soluble endoglin in their blood have a heightened risk of preeclampsia, the researchers say. Endoglin normally sits on the surface of blood vessels, where it plays a role in […]
- Chemistry
Better protection
A new molecular catalyst shortens a widely used reaction into a one-step process, with a bonus: It makes the reaction’s products into one of two possible mirror-image forms. When chemists synthesize compounds, they often add a protective group of atoms to a specific site on a molecule to prevent that site from reacting in subsequent […]
- Earth
Magma heats up as it crystallizes
Molten rock moving through a volcano's plumbing prior to an eruption can sometimes heat up substantially as it approaches Earth's surface.
- Planetary Science
Rare Uranian eclipse
The Hubble Space Telescope has for the first time recorded an eclipse on Uranus.
