Category Archives: news briefs

With the fear of terrorists using dirty bombs increasing, screening for smuggled nuclear materials has become more important than ever. Physicists from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico have invented a device that uses cosmic rays to detect … Continue reading →

Famed for their temples, their astronomy, and their human sacrifices, the Mayan civilization’s sudden collapse has always been mysterious. In the eighth century, the Mayan empire, which lasted more than a thousand years, stretched from Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula to Honduras, … Continue reading →

Most people find it depressing to contemplate the ultimate fate of the universe. Will it recollapse in a Big Crunch, or expand forever, becoming cold and dark? Robert Caldwell of Dartmouth College in New Hampshire and his colleagues have come … Continue reading →

Footprints more than 300,000 years old have been found along the side of an inactive volcano in southern Italy. Though footprints more than 3 million years old have been discovered in Tanzania’s Olduvai Gorge, they are thought to have been … Continue reading →

Using genetic engineering, British researchers have converted one species of yeast into another. Stephen Oliver of the University of Manchester and his colleagues reported in the March 6 Nature that swapping chunks of genetic material can create different species. Oliver … Continue reading →

A highly sensitive imaging instrument aboard NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has revealed a massive, doughnut-shaped cloud of gas around Jupiter. The designers of the instrument — physicists from Johns Hopkins University — reported in the Feb. 27 Nature that the 60,000-ton, … Continue reading →

Black cats are luckier than previously thought — lucky for themselves, anyway. An unusually colored animal would seem to be much more likely to go extinct unless the genes responsible for the color provided some additional benefit to help it … Continue reading →

Linguagen Corp., a biotechnology firm based in New Jersey, has developed and patented a family of compounds that can block the taste of bitter medicines and foods, New Scientist reported last week. The “bitter blockers” work by blocking the production … Continue reading →

It seems that ants aren’t as cooperative and selfless as they’re cracked up to be. Minttumaaria Hannonen and Liselotte Sundstrom of the University of Helsinki report in the Feb. 27 Nature that they have found the first evidence of nepotism … Continue reading →

NASA reported last week that it has finally lost contact with its Pioneer 10 spacecraft. Launched in 1972, the craft had been in service for more than 30 years. Pioneer was the first probe to pass through the asteroid belt, … Continue reading →