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Animals

Farm girl has the chops

The first big family tree presenting the history of fungus-growing ants shows the leaf-cutters as the newest branch, and a very recent one at that.

Health & Medicine

Mouse, Heal Thyself: Therapeutic cloning from a mouse’s own cells

Mice with a Parkinson's disease–like condition benefited from receiving new nerve cells made through therapeutic cloning of their own cells.

Health & Medicine

Still Waters: Skin disease microbe tracked to ponds, swamps

Scientists establish pond water as the natural environment of Mycobacterium ulcerans, the cause of the skin disease Buruli ulcer.

Materials Science

Live Another Day: African insect survives drought in glassy state

When dehydrated, the larvae of an African fly replace the water in their cells with a sugar, which solidifies and helps keep cellular structures intact.

Anthropology

European Roots: Human ancestors go back in time in Spanish cave

Excavations of a cave in northern Spain have yielded a fossil jaw and tooth that provide the first solid evidence that human ancestors reached Western Europe more than 1 million years ago.

Planetary Science

Gassy Geysers: Cassini surveys Saturn’s moon

NASA's Cassini spacecraft had a close encounter with the giant vapor plume gushing from Saturn's tiny moon Enceladus.

Planetary Science

Titan may harbor underground ocean

Observations by the Cassini spacecraft hint that Saturn's smog-shrouded moon Titan may harbor a global ocean of water and ammonia 100 kilometers below its surface.

Tech

Power from heat

A more efficient material that converts heat into electricity could make a new kind of solar panel possible.