Uncategorized
- Planets
Asteroids: Avoiding an Earthly smashup
Any of nearly 1,500 asteroids could hit Earth. Experts want to learn more about the space rocks — and maybe even bump them off course.
- Planets
Explainer: What are asteroids?
Leftovers from the creation of the solar system, asteroids are space rocks that orbit the sun. Let’s hope the big ones never become meteorites.
- Tech
Invisible plastic ‘ink’ foils counterfeiters
Hidden images make a new label virtually counterfeit-proof, thanks to a combination of chemistry and nanotechnology.
- Health & Medicine
Ebola treatments and vaccines could be near
Using experimental medicines against Ebola might help to slow or end an outbreak in Africa that has defied efforts to control it.
- Health & Medicine
Explainer: What is Ebola?
A virus is behind the hemorrhage-inducing infection called Ebola. It causes fevers and often intense bleeding — seemingly from anywhere and everywhere.
- Fossils
Feathers: What every dino wore?
A dino discovery in Siberia suggests feathers were common among the ancient ‘lizards.’
- Microbes
Buried Antarctic lake teems with life
Last year, scientists drilled 800 meters (roughly a half mile) down through ice to reach a pitch-black Antarctic lake. They now report that lake hosts a thriving community of one-celled microbes.
- Health & Medicine
Fist bumps cleaner than handshakes
A handshake, while welcoming, can transmit lots of germs — many times more than a high five or, especially, a fist bump.
- Animals
Germs explain some animal behaviors
The bacteria that people and other animals host in and on their bodies are invisible to the eye. Yet they can play a very visible role in behavior. It’s something scientists are just coming to appreciate.
- Animals
Wind farms: Restaurants for seals?
Scientists have tracked harbor seals visiting the turbines of ocean wind farms. The predators may be drawn by fish that make their homes in the artificial reefs created by the manmade structures.
- Earth
Meteorites likely wiped out Earth’s earliest life
Enormous meteorites appear to have slammed into Earth several times early in its history. Each mega-smashup would have boiled off oceans and obliterated any bit of life.
- Animals
How termites ‘hear‘ about trouble
When danger comes too close, termites bang their heads against the walls of their homes. This action sends out a warning vibration that others ‘hear’ with their legs.
