Sunday Newscape Magazine

MIT researchers and colleagues are working to find out whether energy from trees can power a network of sensors to prevent spreading forest fires. What they learn also could raise the possibility of using trees as silent sentinels along the nation's borders to detect potential threats such as smuggled radioactive materials.

Tempe, Arizona - Oxytocin is a hormone that, according to recent research, is one of the central players in “modulating certain social behaviors in the mammalian brain. ”So why is a music professor at ASU studying oxytocin? Gary Hill, director of bands, has long been interested in the connection between mood and music, and he is taking a step toward finding more answers about how music affects our moods - and ability to learn -

Los Angeles, California - Two terrestrial planets orbiting a mature sun-like star some 300 light-years from Earth recently suffered a violent collision, astronomers at UCLA, Tennessee State University and the California Institute of Technology will report in a December issue of the Astrophysical Journal, the premier journal of astronomy and astrophysics.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has news for parents this cold and flu season: antibiotics don’t work for a cold or the flu. Antibiotics kill bacteria, not viruses. And colds, flu and most sore throats are caused by viruses. Antibiotics don’t touch viruses - never have, never will. And it’s not really news. It’s a long-documented medical fact. But tell that to parents seeking relief for a child’s runny nose.

Astronomers may have discovered the relative of a freakishly behaving exploding star once thought to be the only one of its kind. For more than two decades, astronomers have intensively studied supernova 1987A, an exploding star that had behaved like no other. Instead of growing dimmer with time, 1987A has grown brighter at X-ray and radio wavelengths.