Smash and stare Japan's Kaguya lunar orbiter was due to end its
nearly two-year mission by smashing into the moon on 10 June.
The impact site will be studied for how radiation and
micrometeoroids affect newly exposed lunar soil. It will be like
"watching a wound heal", says Peter Schultz of Brown University
in Providence, Rhode Island. Does TB form spores? The bug that
causes tuberculosis can lurk undetected in the lungs for
decades, making TB hard to treat. Now a team at Uppsala
University in Sweden has found that close relatives of the TB
bug form tough, dormant spores like other types of bacteria such
as anthrax (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0904104106). If TB also forms spores, the
discovery may yield badly needed treatments. A close relative of
the parasite that causes malaria has been found in two pet
chimpanzees in ... To continue reading this article, subscribe
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