News
- Anthropology
Hybrid-Driven Evolution: Genomes show complexity of human-chimp split
A controversial new genetic comparison suggests that human and chimpanzee ancestors interbred for several million years before evolving into reproductively separate species no more than 6.3 million years ago.
By Bruce Bower - Materials Science
Feeling cagey
Researchers have discovered that gold can take the shape of nanoscale, hollow cages.
- Astronomy
Safe from a Heavenly Doom: Gamma-ray bursts not a threat to Earth
Gamma-ray bursts are likely to occur in the Milky Way.
By Ron Cowen - Health & Medicine
Bug Zapper: Novel drug kills resistant bacteria
A newly recognized compound can wipe out some of the most troublesome antibiotic-resistant bacteria, lab tests show.
By Nathan Seppa - Paleontology
Remains may be an evolutionary relic
Fossils recently found in southwestern China may be of a lineage that originated long before the Cambrian explosion of biodiversity, when most major groups of animals first appeared in the fossil record.
By Sid Perkins - Earth
Three Gorges Dam is affecting ocean life
Oceanographic surveys suggest that China's Three Gorges Dam is already influencing biological productivity in the East China Sea, even though the structure is still under construction.
By Sid Perkins -
Cancer gene is also important for growth
A certain tumor-suppressing gene appears to also control development in immature animals.
- Tech
Rounding out an insect-eye view
A new humanmade version of an insect's compound eye could perform like the real thing.
By Peter Weiss - Humans
Roads pose growing danger in poor countries
Although roads are getting safer in many developed countries, traffic accidents are a rising and underestimated killer worldwide.
By Ben Harder - Health & Medicine
Nabbed: Culprit of grapefruit juice–drug interaction
Researchers have pinned down the class of natural compounds in grapefruit juice that's responsible for its unwanted chemical interaction with many drugs.
By Ben Harder - Agriculture
Biotech cotton: Less spray but same yield
The way farmers grow transgenic cotton in Arizona lets them skip some of their regular spraying but end up with the same yield as traditional farmers, as well as the same impact on ants and beetles.
By Susan Milius - Humans
Report knocks NASA funding
A new National Academy of Sciences study joins the chorus of critics that claim NASA is overextended, sacrificing basic- science research in order to finish building the International Space Station and fund President Bush's plan to return astronauts to the moon.
By Ron Cowen