News
- Physics
As waters part, polygons appear
When rapidly swirled inside a stationary bucket, liquids can form whirlpools of surprising shapes, such as triangles and hexagons.
- Archaeology
Jarring clues to Tut’s white wine
Chemical analyses of residue from jars found in King Tutankhamen's tomb have yielded the first evidence of white wine in ancient Egypt.
- Materials Science
Gripping Tale: Metal oozes in nanotubes’ grasp
Carbon nanotubes can squeeze substances inside them with such high pressures that even hard metals squish like putty.
- Animals
Lobster Hygiene: Healthy animals quick to spot another’s ills
Caribbean spiny lobsters will avoid sharing a den with another lobster that's coming down with a viral disease.
-
Big Oil, Tiny Barons: Microbes can unleash trapped petroleum
Specialized microbes can lift trapped oil from wells long gone dry.
- Health & Medicine
For the Birds: New vaccines protect chickens from avian flu
By piggybacking components of strains of avian-influenza virus onto an existing poultry vaccine, scientists have created experimental vaccines that can prevent bird flu in chickens.
- Health & Medicine
Open Water, Open Mouths: Scuba divers face infection risks
A new study takes a stab at quantifying the risks that waterborne bacteria and viruses pose to scuba divers.
- Ecosystems
Top-Down Lowdown: Predators shape coastal ecosystem
The health of southern California kelp forests may depend more on the ecosystem's predator population than the forest's access to nutrients.
-
Burden of Abuse: Violent partners take mental toll on women
Physical abuse at the hands of their husbands or live-in male partners contributes substantially to major depression and other disorders among women.
- Health & Medicine
Prescription stimulants are big on campus
Nearly 1 in 10 students at a New England college admits to using prescription stimulants without authorization.
- Animals
True-pal lizards may show odd gene
Colorful lizards in California may offer an example of a long-sought evolutionary factor called greenbeard genes, a possible explanation for altruism.
- Health & Medicine
Hookworms hitched rides with nomads
Horseback-riding herders known as Scythians once traveled far and wide across Eurasia, and their remains contain the parasites to prove it.
