News
- Astronomy
Crater Shake: Tremors erased asteroid’s topography
Seismic shock waves from a large meteor impact on the asteroid Eros might have rearranged surface rubble, destroying crater structures over much of the asteroid.
- Tech
Tapping Tiny Pores: Nanovalves control chemical releases
After creating arrays of nanovalves, each made from a single molecule, chemists used them to generate minuscule chemical discharges.
- Earth
Under Pressure: High-stress tests show surprising change in a mantle mineral’s behavior
Compressing a common iron-bearing mineral to the pressures found deep within Earth makes the material much stiffer, which might explain why seismic waves travel particularly fast through some zones of rock.
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Bacterial Snitch: Species competes by telling on another
A bacterial species that typically colonizes people's noses may win out over another bacterium by tattling to the host's immune system.
- Animals
Meat-Eating Caterpillar: It hunts snails and ties them down
A newly named species of Hawaiian caterpillar sneaks up on a resting snail and quickly spins silk strands around it, lashing it to the spot, and then eats it.
- Earth
Ultrasound solution to toxin pollution
Ultrasound treatment of water can generate reactive chemicals that destroy potentially lethal algal toxins.
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- Animals
Ladybug mom provides infertile eggs as baby food
When food gets scarce, multicolored Asian ladybugs lay extra dud eggs that can end up as emergency rations for their young.
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Yellow color gives microbe its power
The bright-yellow pigment that tints the bacteria that cause staph infections is pivotal to the microbe's virulence.
- Health & Medicine
A problem at hand for catchers
A young professional baseball catcher, who may receive more than 100 pitches per game thrown at more than 90 miles per hour, may be virtually certain to develop circulatory abnormalities in his catching hand.
- Agriculture
Soy-protein quality versus quantity
New tests show that as the protein yields of soybeans rise, the growth-enhancing quality of that protein as a food or feed decreases.
- Anthropology
People fired up Aussie extinctions
Early Australian settlers may have altered the continent's landscape around 50,000 years ago, leading to the extinction of many animal species.
