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Yearly Archives: 2019
Star nearing death offers a preview of our Sun’s fate
An international team of astronomers has witnessed a rare dynamic event foreshadowing the death of a red giant star for the first time –...
Microrobots show promise for treating tumors
Targeting medical treatment to an ailing body part is a practice as old as medicine itself. A Band-Aid is placed on a skinned knee....
Electricity-driven undersea reactions may have been important for the emergence of life
Though it remains unknown how life began, there is a community of scientists who suspect it occurred in or around deep sea hydrothermal environments....
Quantum uncertainty helps solve an old problem
Controlling how electrons zip through a material is of central importance to build novel electronic devices. How the electronic motion is affected by magnetic...
Elephant extinction will raise carbon dioxide levels in atmosphere
One of the last remaining megaherbivores, forest elephants shape their environment by serving as seed dispersers and forest bulldozers as they eat over a...
New space discovery sheds light on how planets form
Researchers at Dartmouth College have discovered a planet orbiting one of the brightest young stars known, according to a study published in the journal The...
An apple carries about 100 million bacteria—good luck washing them off
To the heroes among you who eat the whole apple: besides extra fiber, flavonoids and flavor, you're also quaffing 10 times as many bacteria...
The climate is warming faster than it has in the last 2,000 years
Many people have a clear picture of the "Little Ice Age" (from approx. 1300 to 1850). It's characterized by paintings showing people skating on...
Designed protein switch allows unprecedented control over living cells
Scientists have created the first completely artificial protein switch that can work inside living cells to modify—or even commandeer—the cell's complex internal circuitry.
The switch...
How the kava plant produces its pain-relieving and anti-anxiety molecules
Kava (Piper methysticum) is a plant native to the Polynesian islands that people there have used in a calming drink of the same name...
How black holes shape galaxies
Data from ESA's XMM-Newton X-ray observatory has revealed how supermassive black holes shape their host galaxies with powerful winds that sweep away interstellar matter.
In...
