All Stories by Stephen Ornes
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- Tech
Perfect reflections
Physicists have built a mirror that Snow White’s wicked stepmother would certainly not appreciate. It offers a perfect reflection.
- Microbes
The power of microbes
A living animal is never alone. Its body — like yours — is home to trillions of microbes, or tiny single-celled organisms. Those microbes aren’t just hitchhiking. They can play an important role in separating species, researchers now report.
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- Agriculture
The cabbage’s clock
A newly harvested plant, fruit or vegetable does not turn off — like a switch — and die, scientists report. Instead, an internal “clock” inside the fresh-picked plant continues to tick away. It responds to light and darkness, just as when it had been rooted in the soil.
- Animals
Amputated ‘finger’ tips grow back
Both toenails and toe tips grew back in mice, thanks to special ‘stem’ cells living beneath the nails.
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- Brain
Headers and memory loss
Soccer players who frequently use their heads score worse on memory tests.
- Health & Medicine
Infection time
Disease is more severe when it hits in the morning, at least in mice.
- Health & Medicine
Flu in the air
Germs tiny enough to pass through surgical masks may cause half of all cases.
- Plants
Old, cold moss grows again
Mosses are mini but mighty: Even after centuries buried beneath a glacier, some of these small, flowerless plants can regrow.
