All Stories by Jessica Gorman
- Chemistry
Additive gives improved mileage, less smog
A new fuel additive, polyisobutylene, decreases automobile emissions by 70 percent while increasing power and mileage.
- Humans
Cutting edge chemistry rushes online
A new online server offers a place for communicating chemistry research to other scientists quickly and without peer review.
- Humans
Russia’s nuclear-safety issues spread
A leading Russian environmentalist, Aleksandr Nikitin, says Russia's problems with nuclear-waste management should concern people beyond that country's borders.
- Materials Science
Apollo attire needs care
Advanced spacesuits protected astronauts far from Earth just 30 years ago, but the materials have already deteriorated.
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- Chemistry
Ribosomes Reveal Their RNA Secrets
The first atomic-resolution map of a ribosome, a cell's protein factory, suggests that RNA catalyzes the formation of proteins.
- Chemistry
Crystal Reveals Unexpected Beginnings
For the first time, researchers have directly observed a protein begin to crystallize, and they've found it has a peculiar shape.
- Materials Science
A new carbon nanotool springs to life
Physicists have pulled out the inside cylinders of multiwall carbon nanotubes, as if expanding a telescope, indicating how the devices may serve as tiny bearings and springs in future nanomachines.
- Materials Science
Ancient seal technology shows its age
Modern technologies reveal than an ancient method of engraving tough quartz in Mesopotamia was adopted some 1,500 years later than scholars had thought.
- Chemistry
Lakes reveal low phosphate concentrations
Researchers using a new technique have found that previous measurements of phosphate, an important nutrient in lake ecosystems, have grossly overestimated its concentration.
- Materials Science
Conch yields clues for future materials
A conch's tough, calcium carbonate shell resists fractures because a protein surrounds the mineral crystals throughout the shell.
- Astronomy
Sugarcoated news arrives from space
Scientists spotted a simple sugar in interstellar space for the first time.
