Uncategorized
- Tech
Branching out for safer water
Clean drinking water could be only a tree branch away, a new study finds.
- Earth
Earthquake-triggered lightning?
An experiment with beads offers support for the claim that a rare type of lightning may accompany some quakes.
- Computing
Teen wins $100,000 for flu advance
Forty talented high-school seniors competed in the 2014 Intel Science Talent Search this week, sharing $630,000 in prizes. Top prize went to a teen for his new approach to fighting flu.
- Animals
Passing diseases from bee to bee
A study finds that the viruses and parasites that plague honeybees can infect bumblebees too, sickening another important pollinator.
- Health & Medicine
Simple test for cancer and heart disease
Disease diagnosis often requires expensive equipment and tests to probe deep inside the body. But a new test relies on a fast, cheap and easy technique. And its answers appear on a strip of paper — just as they do on a pregnancy test.
- Physics
Temperature ‘lock’ for new hard drives?
A novel material can alter how easy it is to change data stored on it, based on temperature. One immediate application: more secure hard drives for computing.
- Brain
Mapping the brain’s highways
A new map may explain why some brain injuries are worse than others. Even relatively minor injuries that disrupt message superhighways may have a more devastating impact than some seemingly catastrophic injuries.
- Animals
‘Crazy’ ant fight
By neutralizing the poison produced by fire ants, ‘crazy’ ants can survive heated battles. And that may help explain why crazy ants are edging out fire ants in parts of the southern United States.
- Brain
Why boys face higher autism risk
Boys develop autism at four times the rate seen in girls. Girls’ genes are better protected from the mutations linked to this brain disorder, data now suggest.
- Fossils
Reviving dinosaurs
With the help of computers, researchers are getting a pretty good idea of how these ancient creatures moved, walked and ate.
- Space
Star cluster rockets through space
It’s the first time astronomers have ever detected a cluster of stars moving collectively at such speed.
- Animals
We are stardust
Everything making up Earth and what’s now living upon it — from trees and people to our pets and their fleas — owes their origins to the elements forged by ancient stars.
