Life
- Brain
Alzheimer’s protein can sneak into the brain from the blood
Experiments in mice show that proteins linked with Alzheimer’s disease can enter the brain from the blood, then stockpile there.
- Animals
Humongous land crab dines on remote-island seabirds
A biologist has documented a coconut crab taking out a seabird as part of a study of the huge invertebrates living on an Indian Ocean archipelago.
- Brain
Trading smartphone time for sleep? Your loss
A new study shows more and more teenagers are hanging out on devices when they should be catching ZZZs, putting their health at risk.
- Ecosystems
Scientists Say: Bog
Bogs are a type of wetland in which partially decayed plants sink down and form peat.
- Animals
Alligators aren’t just freshwater animals
It’s time to change the textbooks. Alligators have been seen in salty waters snacking on sharks.
- Life
Doctors repair skin of boy dying from ‘butterfly’ disease
Researchers fixed a genetic defect, then replaced about 80 percent of a child’s skin. This essentially cured the boy’s life-threatening disease.
- Animals
Lasers can turn a spider’s silk into sculptures
Spider silk is strong and super-stretchy. Scientists have developed a way to sculpt that material into unusual, micro-scale shapes using lasers.
- Chemistry
Scientists Say: Amino Acid
Amino acids are small molecules that make up proteins and serve as messengers in our cells.
- Animals
Tiny T. rex arms were built for combat
The fearsome T. rex had more than a mouth full of killer teeth. Its relatively tiny arms also could have served in close combat as powerful slashers.
- Health & Medicine
Scientists Say: Vestigial
This adjective is used to describe something — like a body part or organ — that doesn’t have a function. Often it is smaller or less developed than the functional version in another species.
- Environment
Tropics may now emit more carbon dioxide than they absorb
Analyses of satellite images suggest that degraded forests now release more carbon than they store.
- Climate
Thawing mosses tell a climate change tale
Plants long entombed beneath Canadian ice are now emerging. They’re telling a story of warming unprecedented in the history of human civilization.
