Life
- Plants
Gold can grow on trees
Australian researchers found leafy nano-evidence pointing to rich deposits of the precious metal deep below ground.
- Health & Medicine
HIV: Reversing a death sentence
New research suggests the infection, while serious, can be treated — and maybe cured.
- Brain
Seeing without light
Many people report seeing their own hands moving in the dark, a new study finds. In these people, brain areas responsible for motion appear to fool vision centers into seeing what they would have — if there had been enough light to do so.
- Brain
Fear prompts teens to act impulsively
A new study finds that teens may act impulsively in the face of fear. This might help explain high rates of violence among such adolescents, the authors say.
- Animals
Ants on guard
Tiny insects can take on big critters — from fly larvae to giraffes — in defense of their home, sweet home. And that home pays them back for this help.
- Brain
Sleeping brains take a bath
During waking hours, litter builds up in the spaces between brain cells. A new study shows that during sleep, fluid from the brain and spinal cord takes out this trash.
- Brain
In pursuit of memory
Why is granny so forgetful? Scientists must learn how the brain builds memories if they hope to figure out why recall fails in old age.
- Fossils
King of Gore
Paleontologists debut the oldest T. rex ancestor. Weighing as much as a car and longer than a two-story building is tall, this meat eater would have been one fierce predator.
- Brain
One eye, 3-D
Most scientists think people need two eyes to see a flat image or movie in three dimensions. However, a new study suggests seeing in 3-D with one-eye is possible.
- Fossils
Where do humans come from?
Some scientists propose a newfound South African species as the most likely ancestor of the line that led to humans. But not everyone accepts that this is where it all began.
- Fossils
How sharks survived the ‘Great Dying’
By abandoning their coastal homes, some sharks survived an event that caused mass extinctions of other species.
- Brain
Restoring a sense of touch
A zap to a monkey’s brain fools the animal into thinking its finger has been touched. The findings point to a way for artificial fingers to communicate with the brain so that touch “feels” more real.
