In the Nov. 30 SN: A diabetes drug has cancer potential, supernovas raise questions about dark energy, steroids’ effects may last years and why some scientists think molecular shepherds in the brain may turn wolf.
November 30, 2013
© JIM WEST/ALAMY
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Magazine
In the April 14 SN: Killer heat, mass insect migrations, the latest Saturn updates, rethinking the Nobel Prize, tectonics on Venus, the science of mass shootings, ancient tool trends and more.
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Old drug, new tricks
Like an aging actor rediscovered after being typecast for years, the long-standing diabetes drug metformin is poised to reinvent itself. A wealth of studies suggests the drug has cancer-fighting properties, and clinical trials are now under way to prove it.
Metformin’s impact could be huge. “We believe that if this drug works, it will save between 100,000 and 150,000 lives a year worldwide because it is readily administered in countries that don’t have a lot of money for drugs,” says Vuk Stambolic, a molecular biologist at the University of Toronto. Also encouraging is the wide array of cancers metformin may t
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The Inconstant Gardener
Microglia, the same immune cells that help sculpt the developing brain, may do damage later in life . - Feature
Science slowdown
The recent federal government shutdown, which furloughed more than 800,000 government workers and may have cost the nation as much as $24 billion, has sent ripples through the nation’s scientific research enterprise. - Science Visualized
Solar explosion forms 'Canyon of Fire'
Just when the sun was looking especially lethargic, a violent eruption left behind a vast chasm of superheated gas on the solar surface. - News
Billions and billions of Earth-sized planets call Milky Way home
Using Kepler data, astronomers estimate that a sizeable fraction of the galaxy’s sunlike stars have Earth-sized planets that could support liquid water. - News
Meteor explosions like this year’s Russian fireball more common than thought
Chelyabinsk-sized rocks may come to Earth every 30 years, on average. - It's Alive
Fungal fight club
Combat between fungal individuals is a bit like war between heaps of spaghetti. - News
Single electron caught in action
Researchers have found a way to isolate the behavior of one particle. - News
People’s genes welcome their microbes
In mice and humans, genetic variants seem to control the bacterial mix on and in bodies. - News
Steroids boost muscles for the long haul
Experiments in mice suggest that effects don’t end when doping does.