Environment
Permafrost Meltdown May Bog Down Global Warming--For Awhile
Thawing permafrost may soak up greenhouse gas before it begins to spew it out
Stories by Brendan Borrell
Health
Don't cure cancer, stabilize it
What if we didn’t try to cure cancer, but simply kept tumors from growing too big? That’s what radiologist Robert Gatenby of the Moffitt Cancer Center proposes this week in the journal Nature ...
The Sciences
A spider does what with his genitals?
You probably knew that honeybees typically die after they sting you, as their barbed stingers are torn from their abdomens. But did you know that after mating, some male spiders break off the ends of their palps—the organ used to transfer sperm—inside the female?
That’s right...
Environment
Tread Heavily: China's Tire Demand Rolls over Southeast Asian Forests
China's thirst for rubber is destroying the environment--and livelihoods--in Southeast Asia
Environment
The Urban Phantom: Why bears are like drug addicts
The suspect was first reported rummaging through trash in Seattle’s Magnolia neighborhood shortly before midnight on Sunday, and pretty soon 14 police were in hot pursuit with flashing lights and a bear-scenting dog, according to the The S eattle Times ...
Evolution
Hey, hey, we're the monkeylike primates! The missing link that ignited a media backlash
On the day after the festivities at the American Museum of Natural History, the star of the show—a 47-million-year-old primate fossil named Ida—is intact, but science is still recuperating from the massive media hangover. Jørn Hurum, the University of Oslo paleontologist who orchestrated the hubbub about the monkey–lemur intermediary, wasn’t coy about his intentions...
The Sciences
Life began in a flash; Science takes four billion years to catch up
This week's issue of Nature features a welcome discovery for those of us enthralled, mystified and frustrated by the study of the origins of life.
John Sutherland, a chemist at the University of Manchester, and his colleagues claim to have figured out how ribose, phosphate and the nitrogenous (nitrogen-bearing) molecules known as nucleobases first came together to form nucleotides—the building blocks of the RNA world from which life is thought to have emerged...
Health
Bear market for swine flu
Just as the media chatter about H1N1 influenza reached a fever pitch, traders were expressing a more sober outlook.
At least that's the word from the Iowa Electronic Health Markets, which opened H1N1 futures contracts on April 28th to assess the breadth, speed and severity of the outbreak...
The Sciences
Don't Fence Me In: Researchers Devise Bio-Boundary for African Wild Dogs
Africa's second-most endangered predator breaks out of the reserves created to protect it. Now, biologists are finding that it's own urine can be used to contain it
Health
Churn Baby, Churn: Using Virtual Stomachs to Regurgitate the Mysteries of Digestion
What can computational fluid dynamics teach us about the biggest gap in the science of nutrition?
The Sciences
Making Mushrooms Environmentally Friendly
Can science keep mushroom farmers from stinking up the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania?
The Sciences
Fiddling with Flavors: Making Healthy Bread Taste Better
Does the secret of flavor lie in the Maillard reaction?
The Sciences
Chocolatiers Look at Ways to Take Bug-Based Varnish off Candy
Will India's sweet tooth be enough to get dead insects out of our chocolate?
Health
Sausage without the Squeal: Growing Meat inside a Test Tube
A Dutch laboratory tries to produce pork without the pig
Health
Finding Balance: A Novel Theory on Seasickness
Is poor posture control the real cause of motion sickness?
The Sciences
Slide Show: Amy Goldman's Heirloom Tomatoes
Not Your Garden-Variety Garden Tomatoes
The Sciences
How to Grow a Better Tomato: The Case against Heirloom Tomatoes
The product of archaic breeding strategies, heirloom tomatoes are hardly diverse and are no more "natural" than grocery-store varieties. New studies promise to restore their lost, healthy genes...
Biology
Scientific meltdown at Chernobyl?
Twenty years after the Chernobyl meltdown in Ukraine, radiation is still hammering the region's insect, spider, and bird populations.
At least that's what Reuters and the BBC reported last week based on a paper published in the journal Biology Letters by ecologists Timothy Mousseau of the University of South Carolina and Anders Møller of the University of Paris-Sud...
Health
What is "talk and die" syndrome?
After a seemingly minor fall on the slopes, actress Natasha Richardson is reportedly suffering from a potentially deadly head injury
Health
A Medical Madoff: Anesthesiologist Faked Data in 21 Studies
A pioneering anesthesiologist has been implicated in a massive research fraud that has altered the way millions of patients are treated for pain during and after orthopedic surgeries
