Science

A cold slice of watermelon has long been a Fourth of July holiday staple. But according to recent studies, the juicy fruit may be better suited for Valentine’s Day.
That’s because scientists say watermelon has ingredients that deliver Viagra-like effects to the body’s blood vessels and may even increase libido.
"The more we study watermelons, the more […]

Nearly a century after Danish physicist Niels Bohr offered his planet-like model of the hydrogen atom, a Rice University-led team of physicists has created giant, millimeter-sized atoms that resemble it more closely than any other experimental realization yet achieved.
The research is available online in Physical Review Letters.
Bohr offered the first successful theoretical model of the […]

Milk goes green: Cows that receive recombinant Bovine Somatotropin (rbST) make more milk, all the while easing natural resource pressure and substantially reducing environmental impact, according to a Cornell University study to be published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (June 30, 2008.)
Producing milk uses large quantities of land, energy and feed, […]

If you are curious about Earth’s periodic mass extinction events such as the sudden demise of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, you might consider crashing asteroids and sky-darkening super volcanoes as culprits.
But a new study, published June 15, 2008, in the journal Nature, suggests that it is the ocean, and in particular the epic […]

Single person submersibles have been called in to help scientists retrieve samples from a lake in northern British Columbia that may hold vital clues to the history of life on Earth and on other planets.
Greg Slater, an environmental geochemist in the Faculty of Science, says the objects of scientific interest are unique carbonate rock structures, […]

A mud volcano that has caused millions of dollars worth of damage was caused by the drilling of a gas exploration well, an international team of scientists has concluded.
The two-year old mud volcano, Lusi, is still spewing huge volumes of mud and has displaced more than 30,000 people.
The most detailed scientific analysis to date disproves […]

Can human beings rev up their intelligence quotients, or are they stuck with IQs set by their genes at birth? Until recently, nature seemed to be the clear winner over nurture.
But new research, led by Swiss postdoctoral fellows Susanne M. Jaeggi and Martin Buschkuehl, working at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, suggests that […]

In the world of underwater robots, this is a team of pioneers. While most ocean robots require periodic communication with scientist or satellite intermediaries to share information, these can work cooperatively communicating only with each other.
Over the past five years Kristi Morgansen, a University of Washington assistant professor of aeronautics and astronautics, has built three […]

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego, today announced a new study to quantify the amounts and kinds of information being produced worldwide by businesses and consumers alike. The “How Much Information?” study will be completed by a multi-disciplinary, multi-university faculty team supported by corporate and foundation sponsorship. The program will be undertaken […]

New research in the Society of Chemical Industry’s Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture shows that oregano oil works as well as synthetic insecticides to combat infestation by a common beetle, Rhizoppertha dominica, found in stored cereals.
Not only does oregano oil work as well as synthetic versions but it has none of the […]

U.S. Forest Service scientists with the Institute of Pacific Islands Forestry have submitted a proposal to release a Brazilian insect to control the spread of strawberry guava, a South American tree that has invaded and degraded native Hawaiian ecosystems since it was introduced in 1825 as a garden plant.
The scientists are working in collaboration with […]

Michael Pollan’s recent bestseller The Omnivore’s Dilemma revealed to millions of readers the centrality, and dangers, of commodity corn in the modern industrialized agriculture system as developed in the United States. The “modern varieties” of corn, which are low in diversity, are now taking over the very birthplace of the crop, Southern Mexico, where it […]

There are only four specimens of the Yangtze giant softshell turtle left on Earth — one in the wild and three in captivity. In order to save this species from extinction, conservation partners from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and the Turtle Survival Alliance (TSA), working in conjunction with partners from two Chinese zoos and […]

The number of humpback whales in the North Pacific Ocean has increased since international and federal protections were enacted in the 1960s and ’70s, according to a new study funded primarily by NOAA and conducted by more than 400 whale researchers throughout the Pacific region.
However, some isolated populations of humpbacks, especially those in the Western […]

Researchers at the University of Minnesota’s Bell Museum of Natural History and Pennsylvania’s Villanova University have discovered a new family of gecko, the charismatic large-eyed lizard popularized by car insurance commercials.
Scientists have long been interested in geckos and their evolution because they are key biodiversity indicators and are found on nearly every continent. Researchers are […]

Gamers have devoted countless years of collective brainpower to rescuing princesses or protecting the planet against alien invasions. This week researchers at the University of Washington will try to harness those finely honed skills to make medical discoveries, perhaps even finding a cure for HIV.
A new game, named Foldit, turns protein folding into a competitive […]

An undergraduate student at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has learned very quickly that a spoonful of sugar really does help the medicine go down. In fact, with his invention, the sugar may actually be the medicine.
Among the most important and complex molecules in the human body, sugars control not just metabolism but also how cells communicate […]

An international consortium of scientists, led by Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, has decoded the genome of the platypus, showing that the animal’s peculiar mix of features is reflected in its DNA. An analysis of the genome, published today in the journal Nature, can help scientists piece together a more complete picture […]

A team of Filipino and American scientists have rediscovered a highly distinctive mammal ¨C a greater dwarf cloud rat ¨C that was last seen 112 years ago. Furthermore, it has never before been discovered in its natural habitat and was thought by some to be extinct.
The greater dwarf cloud rat (Carpomys melanurus) has dense, soft […]

It has long been known that birds and many other animals including turtles, salamanders and lobsters, use the Earth’s magnetic field to navigate, but the nature of their global positioning systems (GPS) has not been completely understood.
One school of thought hypothesizes that birds use magnetically-sensitive chemical reactions initiated by light (called chemical magnetoreception) to orient […]