Two more of the ingredients for life as we know it have turned up in space, this time from a comet orbiting the sun. While hints of both have been seen in comets before, this is the clearest evidence to date. Glycine, the smallest of the 20 amino acids that build proteins, is floating in […]

From California to China, desert moss (Syntrichia caninervis) braves life in hot deserts and still stays hydrated. What’s its secret? The moss gathers water via a topsy-turvy collection system in its leaves. Moss leaves have tiny hairlike points at their ends called awns. Previous evidence pointed to a potential role for the awns in water […]

For the second time, scientists have glimpsed elusive ripples that vibrate the fabric of space. A new observation of gravitational waves, announced by scientists with the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, LIGO, follows their first detection, reported earlier this year (SN: 3/5/16, p. 6). The second detection further opens a new window through which to […]

AUSTIN, TEXAS — Success of an indoor spraying campaign to combat malaria on an African island may have started a worrisome trend in local mosquito evolution. Since 2004, using pesticides inside homes has eradicated two of four malaria-spreading Anopheles mosquitoes on Bioko Island in Equatorial Guinea, vector biologist Jacob I. Meyers of Texas A&M University […]

Bottoms up, from the distant past. Thanks to a new method of analyzing the chemicals in liquids absorbed by clay containers, researchers have uncorked the oldest solid evidence of grape-based wine making in Europe, and possibly the world, at a site in northern Greece. Chemical markers of red wine were embedded in two pieces of […]