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In this article you mention that Lyme disease is the most common “insect-borne” disease in the United States. Since Lyme disease is spread by ticks, and ticks have eight legs and are arachnids, Lyme disease is not insect-borne. Anne Van Aller Woodbine, Md.
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Biodiversity may lessen Lyme disease
A survey of Lyme disease rates suggests that a greater diversity of small mammals and lizards may help keep the rates down.
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Old lemming puzzle gets new answer
A novel analysis suggests food supply variations as the answer to the decades-old puzzle of what makes lemming populations boom and bust.
- Math
The Power of Partitions
Writing a whole number as the sum of smaller numbers springs a mathematical surprise.
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- Physics
Stretched matter goes to unusual extremes
Researchers have discovered that several unusual forms of matter with extremely high or low densities can expand laterally in one direction and contract in another when extended.
- Animals
Single singing male toad seeks same
Male spadefoot toads of the Spea multiplicata species evaluate male competitors by the same criterion females use.
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Mice have a sharp nose for pheromones
Mice can detect pheromones with great sensitivity and in a way that's distinct from that of the main olfactory system.
- Health & Medicine
Acrylamide—From Spuds to Gingerbread
Just in time for the holiday season, the Bavarian Ministry of Health reports finding extremely high concentrations of acrylamide—a chemical that causes cancer in rats—in gingerbread. German chemists turned up acrylamide in a favorite holiday treat: gingerbread. Whether baked at home or fried at a restaurant, all hot-potato products cooked up substantial quantitites of acrylamide. […]
- Astronomy
Black holes and galaxies may grow up together
Astronomers have new and, for the first time, quantitative evidence that bigger black holes reside at the centers of bigger galaxies.
- Archaeology
Neandertals’ diet put meat in their bones
Chemical analyses of Neandertals' bones portray these ancient Europeans as skillful hunters and avid meat eaters, countering a theory that they mainly scavenged scraps of meat from abandoned carcasses.
- Math
Punctured Polyhedra
A tetrahedron. Examples of unacceptable faces. A portion of an infinite lattice of interpenetrating tetrahedra. A tetrahedron has four triangular faces, four vertices, and six edges. Consider what happens when a vertex of one tetrahedron pierces the face of a second tetrahedron to form a new, more complicated polyhedron. In the resulting geometric form, one […]
