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June 7th, 2008
issue

  • Dining on insects, usually more by choice than necessity, occurs in at least 100 countries — and may be better than chicken for both people and the environment.
  • Sidebar: Insects
  • Parallel universes aren’t supposed to be observable, but a cosmic crash might leave a visible sign of their existence
  • Iridescence could be pretty meaningful—or maybe just pretty
  • Former child soldiers in Africa often adjust well to community life if they receive group rehabilitation and community acceptance, studies indicate
  • Time-lapse snapshots of molecules show that they change shapes less often than theory predicted.
  • A kilometers-long ice core from Antarctica has been recording climate information for the past 800,000 years and has revealed a three millennia–long period when carbon dioxide levels in the air were lower than any previously measured.
  • For the first time, scientists have resurrected a piece of DNA from an extinct animal — the Tasmanian tiger. The researchers engineered mice with a piece of the long-gone marsupial's DNA that turns on a collagen gene in cartilage-producing cells.
  • The complexity of humans may lie not in genes but in the web of interactions among the proteins they make.
  • New genetic tests to distinguish viable from nonviable embryos may help eliminate risky multiple births from fertility procedures.
  • Human brains rewire when people lose a sense, but a new study of people who have regained vision shows that the rewired areas retain their old abilities.
  • Heavy cannabis smokers have increased blood levels of a protein linked to heart disease.
  • Two proposed studies might determine whether dark energy is real or humans live in a special place in the cosmos
  • Astronomers have found evidence that the icy shell of Jupiter's large moon Europa has rotated nearly a quarter-turn, which supports the notion that the moon has a subterranean ocean.
  • More than 1,500 young scientists flexed their mental muscles this week at the world's largest high-school science competition.
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Undeclared
Comment By Guest Columnists Oct 10th 2008
Julie Rehmeyer
Math Trek By Julie Rehmeyer
The U.S. News & World Report rankings of colleges and universities are largely arbitrary, according to a new mathematical analysis. Oct 3rd 2008
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Natural History of the Point Reyes Peninsula by Jules G. Evens
Univ. of California, 2008, 366 p., $24.95
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