All Stories by Laurel Hamers
- Climate
Antarctica’s melting speeds up
Antarctica’s ice has been melting faster in the last five years. This has raised the world’s oceans almost 8 millimeters on average.
- Materials Science
This plastic can be recycled over and over and over
A new kind of plastic is fully recyclable: Unlike current plastics, it breaks down into the exact same molecules from which it was made.
- Health & Medicine
How the body protects us from potentially toxic amounts of sugar
A study in mice shows the small intestine shields the liver from the potentially damaging effects of exposure to fructose — but only up to a limit.
- Health & Medicine
Yuck! Bedbug poop leaves lingering health risks
Chemical residues left by bedbugs can persist, even when the pests have been eradicated. This may explain lingering allergic symptoms in cleaned up homes, a new study concludes.
- Environment
Household products can really pollute the air
Auto exhaust isn’t the only major sources of air pollution, indoors and out. A new study finds a laundry list of household products can — when used by millions — match the contributions of traffic.
- Health & Medicine
Raw cookie dough’s flour could make you really sick
It’s not just the eggs in cookie dough that can pose food-poisoning risks. Even flour can sicken people if it is eaten raw.
- Animals
How these poison frogs avoid poisoning themselves
Genetic changes protect poison dart frogs from a toxin, but those changes also cause ripple effects.
- Earth
‘Watermelon’ snow is helping melt glaciers
Microbes that paint snow pink are accelerating the melting of ice fields in Alaska.
- Brain
Could Zika become a cancer treatment?
The same virus that provoked fear over causing birth defects, last year, may have a beneficial alter ego. Scientists find it may kill cells destined to form deadly brain tumors.
- Chemistry
Super-chilled imaging technique brings its developers the Nobel Prize in chemistry
Three men who helped develop a super-high-resolution imaging technique for proteins, viruses and more received the 2017 Nobel Prize in chemistry.
- Environment
Air pollution takes a toll on solar energy
Air pollution can rob the light needed for solar panels to make electricity. In India and China, the percent solar energy losses can reach double digits.
- Fossils
Camo might have helped this armored dinosaur avoid becoming lunch
An armored dinosaur the size of a Japanese sedan also wore camouflage, a new analysis of its skin suggests.
