News
- Health & Medicine
Vaccines against Marburg and Ebola viruses advance
Two new vaccines protect against the lethal Ebola and Marburg viruses, tests in monkeys show.
By Nathan Seppa - Health & Medicine
Cells in heart can regenerate dead tissue
Stem cells in heart tissue that has survived a heart attack can be prodded to regenerate dead portions of the injured organ.
By Ben Harder -
Bacterial tresses conduct electricity
New research suggests that several species of Geobacter bacteria use hairlike structures known as pili to move electrons.
- Earth
Growth Slumps: Melting permafrost shapes Alaskan lakes
A new model suggests that some fast-growing, egg-shaped lakes in Alaska expand when their permafrost banks melt and slump in tiny landslides.
By Sid Perkins - Chemistry
Striking Oil: High-pressure processing minimizes trans fats
Improvements in the techniques used to hydrogenate vegetable oils could soon fill store shelves with food products containing smaller percentages of unhealthful trans fats.
By Ben Harder - Health & Medicine
Heartening Responses: Depression drugs may aid survival after heart attack
Depressed patients recovering from heart attacks receive big heart-health benefits by taking prescribed doses of the antidepressant drugs known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors.
By Bruce Bower - Plants
Honey, We Shrank the Snow Lotus: Picking big plants reduces species’ height
Years of harvesting the larger plants of a Himalayan wildflower used in traditional medicines may be driving the evolution of a stubbier plant form.
By Susan Milius - Astronomy
Core Finding: Latest, oddest planet hints at how orbs form
A newly discovered planet beyond the solar system has the most massive core of any planet known.
By Ron Cowen -
Same Difference: Twins’ gene regulation isn’t identical
As identical twins go through life, environmental influences differently affect which genes are turned on and which are switched off.
- Health & Medicine
Epilepsy surgery stands test of time
Brain surgery for people with severe epilepsy keeps many of these patients free of seizures for decades.
By Nathan Seppa - Animals
More junk makes for better dads
A new analysis links dutiful fatherhood in prairie voles to a stretch of DNA once dismissed as meaningless.
By Susan Milius - Astronomy
Rumblings from a dead star
The burned-out cinder left behind when a massive Milky Way star exploded recently underwent its own outburst.
By Ron Cowen