Team Claims It Has Found Oldest Fossils
By NICHOLAS WADE
Microfossils found in Western Australia are the latest salvos in the battle for scientific glory.
Large Zone Near Japanese Reactors to Be Off Limits
By MARTIN FACKLER
A government survey has found radioactivity that far exceeds safe levels around the plant, meaning the areas may be uninhabitable for decades.
Laser Advances in Nuclear Fuel Stir Terror Fear
By WILLIAM J. BROAD
General Electric’s success with a half-century-old idea for enriching nuclear fuel more easily, using lasers, has critics worried that rogue states might use the method to make bomb fuel.
Japan Quake Is Causing Costly Shift to Fossil Fuels
By HIROKO TABUCHI
To meet electricity demand, Japan has fired up fossil-fuel plants at great environmental and economic costs.
Belarus Suspends Pact to Give Up Enriched Uranium
By MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ
The suspension of the deal, in which Belarus had agreed to give up its supply of highly enriched uranium, comes in response to the latest wave of economic sanctions imposed by Washington.
LIFE OUT THERE
Offering Funds, U.S. Agency Dreams of Sending Humans to Stars
By DENNIS OVERBYE
Darpa, the government agency that helped invent the Internet, is studying what it would take to send humans to another star.
Black Scientists Less Likely to Win Federal Research Grants, Study Reports
By KENNETH CHANG
A black scientist seeking a grant from the National Institutes of Health is one-third less likely than a white counterpart to receive financing, according to a study commissioned by the institutes.
Alabama Nuclear Reactor, Partly Built, to Be Finished
By MATTHEW L. WALD
The revived reactor in Hollywood, Ala., is not expected to be completed before 2018 to 2020 — or about a half-century after the project was first announced.
To Get to Cats, Parasite Hijacks Rats’ Arousal Circuits, Study Finds
By WALLACE RAVVEN
Researchers say Toxoplasma gondii twists rats’ instincts, making them lose their fear of cats — the parasite’s ideal host — by stimulating neurons normally engaged in sexual attraction.
Science Times: Aug. 16, 2011
Cancer’s Secrets Come Into Sharper Focus
By GEORGE JOHNSON
Bryce Vickmark for The New York Times
NETHERWORLD Elinor Ng Eaton cloned DNA at the Whitehead Institute in Cambridge, Mass. Researchers are finding clues that pseudogenes lurking within "junk" DNA might play a role in cancer.
Recent discoveries in cell biology have complicated the basic principles of the last decade of cancer research.
Video: Picture This — Cancer
Grizzlies Return, With Strings Attached
By JIM ROBBINS
Along the Rocky Mountain Front, the grizzly bear population has been thriving, and expanding its range to human habitats.
BOOKS ON SCIENCE
Shorelines, Sandy or Otherwise, That May Not Last
By CORNELIA DEAN
Four coastal scientists have come to the aid of the beach curious with a comprehensive, readable guide to the physical features of many kinds of beaches and the threats they face.
Refuse Collects Here, but Visitors and Wildlife Can Breathe Free
By LINDSEY HOSHAW
Semakau Landfill, a popular local getaway in Singapore, is the only active landfill that receives incinerated and industrial waste while supporting a thriving ecosystem.
A Supergene Paints Wings for Surviving Biological War
By NICHOLAS WADE
An evolutionary mystery — how butterflies changed their wing patterns to mimic neighboring species and avoid being eaten by birds — has been solved.
Health News
ESSAY
Pathogens May Change, but the Fear Is the Same
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
To the mortals they mow down, all epidemics are emotionally alike — an onslaught of fear, awe, repulsion, stigma, denial, rage and blame — and doctors would be wrong to forget that.
The Consumer: Mistakes in Storage May Alter Medication
Global Update: Phone Messages Improve Care, Study Finds
Vital Statistics: Watch Your Step While Washing Up
Vital Signs: Regimens: Soothing Melodies for Cancer Patients
Vital Signs: Swapping Meat for Nuts to Lower Diabetes Risk
Vital Signs: Common Sleep Problem Raises Dementia Risk
More News
Leon Schipper, Physicist and Iconoclast, Dies at 64
Britain: Oil Leak Stopped in North Sea
Fritz Bach, Who Aided Transplant Survival, Dies at 77
Virtual and Artificial, but 58,000 Want Course
Meteorologists Who Offer Not Forecasts but Testimony
For the Space Needle’s Birthday, a Trip to Space
George C. Devol, Inventor of Robot Arm, Dies at 99
Sending the Police Before There’s a Crime
More Multimedia
VIDEO: Life Out There: Eden in a Test Tube
To better recognize extraterrestrial life should they come upon it, scientists are working to create simple life forms in a lab. But, as Dennis Overbye reports, they first have to agree what life is.
INTERACTIVE GRAPHIC: 30 Years of the Space Shuttle
An interactive timeline of the 135 space shuttle missions.
Slide Show: Final Launching of Atlantis
VIDEO: Nora Volkow
An interview with the neuroscientist in charge of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, who also happens to be the great-granddaughter of Leon Trotsky.
From the Sunday Magazine
Do You Suffer From Decision Fatigue?
By JOHN TIERNEY
The very act of making decisions depletes our ability to make them well. So how do we navigate a world of endless choice?
SCIENTIST AT WORK BLOG
A Paradise for Plant Diversity
By PAOLA PEDRAZA
Botanists begin to catalog the flora of Las Orquideas National Park in Colombia, a biologically diverse region that remains understudied and largely unexplored.
GREEN BLOG
Candid Camera for Mammals at Risk
By JIM ROBBINS
Some 52,000 photos of 105 species show that a breakdown in natural habitats is causing a decline in the diversity of mammals.
Bashing E.P.A. Is New Theme in G.O.P. Race
By JOHN M. BRODER
Republican presidential hopefuls are portraying the Environmental Protection Agency as a symbol of a heavy-handed regulatory agenda that they say is strangling the economy.
Unpacking Rick Perry's Energy Stance
August 21, 2011
All Deliberate Speed for Nuclear Reforms?
August 19, 2011
Green Respite for a Bustling Delhi Suburb
August 19, 2011
Science Columns
Q & A
As the Worm Turns
By C. CLAIBORNE RAY
There are thousands of species of earthworm around the world, and they all have a sense of direction.
OBSERVATORY
Early Plants Grew Wood as Plumbing, Study Says
By SINDYA N. BHANOO
Two small plants from France and Canada, both about 400 million years old, are the oldest known examples of wood, according to a new study.
OBSERVATORY
In Future Math Whizzes, Signs of ‘Number Sense’
By SINDYA N. BHANOO
Researchers say that children as young as 3 whose intuition about the concepts of more and less appears stronger may have greater mathematical aptitude.
OBSERVATORY
Charting Brain Growth in Humans and Chimps
By SINDYA N. BHANOO
Although human babies and baby chimpanzees both start out with undeveloped forebrains, a new study reports that the human brain increases in volume much more rapidly early on.
Podcast: Science Times
This week: A disease with a mind of its own, looking for the oldest forms of life on Earth, and is it a boy or a girl?
Health Columns
WELL
For Some in Menopause, Hormones May Be Only Option
By TARA PARKER-POPE
For women hoping to combat the symptoms of menopause with nonprescription alternatives like soy and flaxseed supplements, recent studies have held one disappointment after another.
PERSONAL BEST
Perks of Cross-Training May End Before Finish Line
By GINA KOLATA
If you want to improve your performance and avoid injury, cross-training is not the definitive scientific answer.
PERSONAL HEALTH
In Decline, Stillbirths Continue to Devastate
By JANE E. BRODY
Even with advanced technology to monitor the unborn, each year 27,000 fetuses that pass the 20th week of gestation and 13,000 that reach the 28th week or beyond are born dead.
REALLY?
The Claim: To Prevent Migraines, Drink More Water
By ANAHAD O'CONNOR
Dehydration causes blood volume to drop, researchers say, resulting in less blood and oxygen flow to the brain.
