Tech
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Humans
Flu: Grim stats
Though risk of death from conventional flu strains escalates dramatically, beginning around age 45, a new study finds that masks do a fair job of slowing the infection's transmission.
- Animals
Spider men weave silken tapestry
It took herculean effort, but Madagascar crafters created an extraordinary piece of woven art from spider silk.
- Physics
Neutrons for military and medical imaging
An accelerator-based neutron-production system is being designed to cull bombs at risk of exploding prematurely — and make the feedstock for a major isotope used in nuclear medicine.
- Life
Locust wings built for the long haul
Flexible wings help locusts maximize efficiency in flight, new research shows.
- Earth
Cell phones: Precautions recommended
Scientists make a case for texting and using hand-free technologies with those cell phones to which society has become addicted.
- Health & Medicine
Cell phones: Feds probing health impacts
Senate hearing finds that biomedical research agencies aren't complacent about potential health effects of cell-phone radiation.
- Space
Metamaterials mock the heavens
Proposed materials offer a way for physicists to study black holes and chaotic planetary orbits in the laboratory.
- Health & Medicine
Hearing bolsters case for U.S. moly-making
Congress today addressed the need to wean America off of reliance on foreign sources of a feedstock of the most widely used isotope in medical imaging.
- Materials Science
Velcro on steroids
Researchers have designed a steel analog of a well-known fastener.
- Health & Medicine
Tetris players are not block heads
Playing the geometry-based computer game can boost the brain’s gray matter.
- Humans
Medicare changes threaten access to radiation therapy
Oncologists worry that proposed Medicare cuts could result in dramatically reduced access to radiation therapy, even for non-Medicare patients.
- Earth
Sun is setting on incandescent era
After more than a century, Edison's light bulbs stand poised to go extinct.
