Life
- Environment
News Brief: Smokin’ plants
A new study points out how some herb teas and spices could have accidentally picked up nicotine from the smokers working around them.
- Microbes
News Brief: Ebola’s dead stay infectious for a week
The Ebola virus doesn’t die with its victims — at least not right away. A corpse may host live virus for up to a week after death, a new study finds.
- Agriculture
Ditching farm pollution — literally
An Indiana project shows how fighting fertilizer runoff can save farmers money, protect wild habitats and prevent harmful algae blooms.
- Microbes
Making a microbe subway map
We are surrounded by bacteria, fungi and other tiny organisms. Now, high school scientists have contributed to the first map of microbes in the New York subway system.
- Fossils
There really was a Brontosaurus, study claims
A new analysis finds evidence that the Apatosaurus and Brontosaurus were separate groups of animals, which deserve their own names and places on the dino family tree.
- Microbes
New virus may have given kids polio-like symptoms
More than 100 U.S. children developed a paralyzing illness in 2014. Genetic evidence now suggests that the most likely culprit is a new form of a virus in the polio family.
- Animals
News Brief: Tiny songbird is mega-flier
With no pit stops for refueling, this tiny bird wings it from Canada to South America.
- Animals
Scientists Say: Nematode
Nematodes are a group of related small worms found all over the world. They can cause disease, but they also can be useful for scientists to study.
- Life
How DNA is like a yo-yo
When not in use, DNA coils tightly. But it must uncoil for the cell to ‘read’ its genes. Physical forces affect how easily that happens, new data show.
- Health & Medicine
Secrets of slime
Mucus—snot—can be so gross. It’s also critical for many animals, including hagfish, snails and people. Snot can rid our bodies of nasty bacteria and viruses. In other creatures, it can smooth the road or rough up predators.
- Animals
Mates or survival: Which explains a bird’s color?
When male birds are brightly colored, we assume that’s because their plumage attracts the gals. But a new study with thousands of museum specimens shows that sometimes survival is just as important a factor behind bird color.
- Chemistry
Cooking up life for the first time
The basic components for life could have emerged together nearly 4 billion years ago on the surface of Earth, chemists report.
