Renewable-energy developers have begun to tap the vast resource of ocean waves. Meanwhile, researchers are creating a zoo of ingenious wave-power devices, such as this model of the snakelike Pelamis.
Waves flex the device, pushing pistons that then power electric generators.
The first study of home life for Madagascar's poison frogs in the wild finds a striking resemblance to a group that's not closely related, the poison-dart frogs in the Americas. Fatty Findings A recently discovered protein may explain at least part of the molecular mechanisms behind links among obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and even some cancers. Large-scale changes in climate and habitats may have sparked the evolution of many new animal species in Africa beginning 7 million to 5 million years ago, including a string of new species in the human evolutionary family. The skeletal diversity that many scientists use to divide up fossil species in our evolutionary past masks a genetic unity that actually encompassed relatively few species, contend researchers in an opposing camp. A recent Department of Defense analysis of images of the Red Planet may have located a lost spacecraft on Mars, but NASA says the images could just be electronic noise.