Barely two months after an explosion in Louisiana, a train carrying toxic perchloric acid has exploded in a Nebraska rail yard on Thursday, prompting evacuation orders to be issued, as huge plumes are seen engulfing the city. Experts said the incident shows the US has been unable to take seriously and overcome major issues affecting ... Read more
Cabbage-chomping moths genetically modified to be real lady-killers may soon take flight in upstate New York. On July 6, the U.S. Department of Agriculture OK’d a small open-air trial of GM diamondback moths (Plutella xylostella), which the agency says do not pose a threat to human or environmental health. These male moths carry a gene ... Read more
Some stars erupt like clockwork. Astronomers have tracked down a star that Korean astronomers saw explode nearly 600 years ago and confirmed that it has had more outbursts since. The finding suggests that what were thought to be three different stellar objects actually came from the same object at different times, offering new clues to ... Read more
A bit of imperfection could be perfect for flowers creating a “blue halo” effect that bees can see. At least a dozen families of flowering plants, from hibiscuses to daisy relatives, have a species or more that can create a bluish-ultraviolet tinge using arrays of nanoscale ridges on petals, an international research team reports online ... Read more