News

Planetary Science

Martian dust storm

In late October, a day after Mars and Earth were at their closest approach until 2018, the Hubble Space Telescope captured an image of a large dust storm on the Red Planet.

Health & Medicine

New malaria vaccine is off to promising start

An experimental malaria vaccine has been shown to induce a strong immune response in people.

Tech

Sweets spur biodiesel reaction

A Japanese research team has made an environmentally friendly biodiesel catalyst from charred sugars.

Earth

Is Teddy a pollution magnet?

Stuffed toys can accumulate high concentrations of potentially toxic air pollutants.

Ecosystems

Feminized cod on the high seas

Male cod in the open ocean are producing an egg-yolk protein ordinarily made only by females, signaling their potential exposure to estrogen-mimicking pollutants.

Earth

Elevated pesticide threatens amphibians

The survival of certain mountain-dwelling amphibians may be threatened by toxic pesticides that are blown uphill from distant agricultural lands in California's Central Valley.

Animals

Face Time: Bees can tell apart human portraits

Honeybees will learn to zoom up to particular human faces in a version of a facial-recognition test used for people.

Health & Medicine

Rare but Fatal Outcome: Four deaths may trace to abortion pill

In the past 5 years, four healthy women taking the abortion pill mifepristone have died of toxic shock syndrome.

Anthropology

Waves of Grain: New data lift old model of agriculture’s origins

A new analysis of the locations and ages of ancient farming sites reinforces the controversial idea that the groups that started raising crops in the Middle East gradually grew in number and colonized much of Europe.

Computing

Network Inoculation: Antivirus shield would outrace cyber infections

As a new way to protect a computer network from viruses, an epidemic of antiviral protection could theoretically propagate faster through the network than the virus itself, thanks to a novel topological twist.