Uncategorized
- Physics
Hawking proposes solution to black hole problem
Light sliding along the boundary of a black hole encodes everything that ever fell inside, suggests Stephen Hawking in a new but incomplete proposal.
By Andrew Grant - Genetics
DNA architecture, novel forensics offer new clues
Going from theory to practice is always rife with problems, be it shifting from the sequence of DNA’s letters to observing its dynamic machinations or from an identity marker in the lab to a piece of courtroom evidence.
By Eva Emerson - Humans
Moon bounces, bad spider leaders and more reader feedback
Readers debate faith's role in evolution, compare politicians to spiders and more.
- Chemistry
Wanted: Crime-solving bacteria and body odor
Forensic investigators are moving past old-school sleuthing to analyze microbes and odors that tell a more complete story, while pursuing ways to enhance traditional tools as well.
By Meghan Rosen - Health & Medicine
Blood test can predict breast cancer relapse
Blood tests for breast cancer DNA can predict relapse.
- Animals
Twin pandas look forward to growth spurts
The surviving panda twin born at the National Zoo last weekend will undergo DNA tests to discover paternity.
By Meghan Rosen - Climate
Hurricane’s tiny earthquakes could help forecasters
Hurricane Sandy set off small earthquakes under its eye as it moved up the U.S. East Coast in 2012. The tiny tremors could help researchers track the behavior of future storms, researchers propose.
- Animals
Long-tongued fly sips from afar
Long-tongued flies can dabble in shallow blossoms or reach into flowers with roomier nectar tubes.
By Susan Milius - Physics
3-D printed device cracks cocktail party problem
A plastic disk does what sophisticated computers cannot: solve the cocktail party problem.
By Andrew Grant - Animals
Chimps keep numbers high as forest losses mount
African apes show surprising resilience in face of forest destruction.
By Bruce Bower - Neuroscience
Altered protein makes mice smarter
By tweaking a single gene, scientists have turned average mice into supersmart daredevils.
- Quantum Physics
Physicists get answers from computer that didn’t run
By exploiting the quirks of quantum mechanics, physicists consistently determined what a quantum computer would have done without actually running the computer.
By Andrew Grant