Science & Society
‘Fantastic Lab’ recounts battle against typhus, Nazis
Arthur Allen explores how two European scientists produced typhus vaccines during World War II.
Reviews & Previews
Science Visualized
Earth
Supervolcano blast would blanket U.S. in ash
A new simulation illustrates the explosiveness of the volcano that lurks beneath Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming.
Notebook
Planetary Science
To explain asteroid composition, scientists invoke nuts
Brazil nut effect may explain why only large boulders dot surfaces of asteroids.
Features
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3-D scans reveal secrets of extinct creatures
Paleontologists can dig into fossils without destroying them and see what’s inside using 3-D scanning. What they’re learning helps bring the past to life.
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Doctors enlisted to turn the tide on antibiotic resistance
Antibiotic stewardship requires education, diligence, and changes in prescribing. At some hospitals, it’s beginning to halt a dangerous trend.
More Stories from the October 4, 2014 issue
- Health & Medicine
Elderly benefit from high-dose flu shot
High-dose vaccine may offer people age 65 and older improved protection against the flu.
- Materials Science
Nature-inspired camouflage changes its looks with light
Thin, flexible new material steals the color-shifting capabilities of cephalopod skin.
- Life
Gut bacteria may prevent food allergies
In mice, gut bacteria blocked food from seeping out of the intestines and triggering an immune reaction in the bloodstream.
- Neuroscience
Laser light rewrites memories in mice
Mouse experiment demonstrates that good memories can be transformed into bad ones, and vice versa.
- Health & Medicine
To grow new knee cartilage, look to the nose
Cartilage-making cells from the nose grew into patches that successfully replaced damaged or missing cartilage in the knees of goats and of humans.
- Anthropology
Siberians came to North American Arctic in two waves
Siberian ancestors of the modern-day Inuit replaced a 4,000-year-old North American Arctic culture, a DNA study reveals.
- Neuroscience
Pulses to the brain bring memory gains
The ability to associate faces with words is boosted when an outer part of the brain is stimulated, a study shows.
- Animals
Bats hunt ballooning túngara frogs by echolocation
Bat echolocation tracks the billowing vocal sacs of male túngara frogs.
- Health & Medicine
Rabies races up nerve cells
By hijacking a transporter protein and hitting the gas, the disease-causing rabies virus races up long nerve cells that stretch through the body, a new study finds.
- Animals
A fish reared out of water walks better
The normally aquatic fish Senegal bichir raised on land suggests how ancient species might have transitioned into terrestrial ones.
- Astronomy
Milky Way connected to a vast network of galaxies
The Milky Way galaxy lives on the outer edge of a newly discovered supercluster of galaxies named Laniakea that is 520 million light-years across.
- Animals
Archerfish mouth is the secret of precision spit
Trained fish shoot down two hypotheses for their fine spit control but reveal fancy mouth work.
- Oceans
Plastic may take unexpected routes to marine garbage patches
By redefining ocean boundaries, researchers offer new insight to how litter moves through the oceans and who’s to blame for the floating clumps of trash.
- Microbes
Magnets diagnose malaria in minutes
A small magnet-based device provides faster, more-sensitive malaria diagnosis in mice.
- Astronomy
Plasma corkscrews form on sun during stellar eruption
Coronal mass ejection creates twisted loop in sun’s magnetic field.
- Planetary Science
Plate tectonics spotted on Europa
First evidence for plate tectonics elsewhere in solar system discovered on Jupiter’s icy moon Europa.
- Health & Medicine
Autism treatment for babies shows promise in small study
A small study finds that changing how parents interact with infants may reduce autism symptoms.
- Archaeology
Pyramid builders could have used rolling blocks
Instead of sliding blocks on a ramp, ancient Egyptians could have rolled the massive bricks to the pyramids, a physicist suggests.
- Animals
Sneaky little giraffe weevils beat big rivals
A little stealth gives smaller giraffe weevil males a leg up when competing with big ones for mates.
- Tech
Long after JFK assassination, gunshot forensics still limited
The Warren Commission Report included the results of a neutron activation analysis test of Lee Harvey Oswald. But even that high-tech analysis can't distinguish the type of weapon fired.
- Ecosystems
‘Where Do Camels Belong?’ explores invasive species
Ecologist Ken Thompson takes a closer look at the impacts (or lack thereof) of invasive species.
