All Stories
- Earth
Impurities clock crystal growth rates
A novel method for measuring tiny amounts of hydrogen-containing impurities allows researchers to determine growth rates along different directions in a quartz crystal.
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Dementia may travel lonely road in elderly
Social isolation may promote the development of Alzheimer's disease and other brain ailments among elderly people.
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Nerve connections come ready to assemble
Nerve cells seem to package key components of synapses—the specialized complexes than connect the nerve cells—and collectively ship the material to points where these complexes take shape.
- Animals
The truth is, frogs bluff and crabs cheat
Two research teams say they've caught wild animals bluffing, only the second and third examples (outside of primate antics) ever recorded.
- Astronomy
Milky Way feasts on its neighbors
Three new studies reveal that Earth's home galaxy indulged in cannibalism to assemble its visible halo, the diffuse distribution of stars that surrounds the dense core and disk of the Milky Way.
- Health & Medicine
Iron Cooking Pots Help Combat Malnutrition
Iron deficiency, the most common nutritional disorder in the world, is a major problem in many developing countries. The World Health Organization (WHO) currently estimates that a mind-boggling 4 to 5 billion people may suffer from some form of iron deficiency–that’s 66 to 88% of the world’s population. Up to 2 billion of these people […]
- Math
Tilt-A-Whirl Chaos (I)
Tilt-A-Whirl. Sellner Manufacturing Co. Schematic drawing (top view) showing the Tilt-A-Whirl’s geometry. Much of the fun of an amusement park ride results from its stomach-churning, mind-jangling unpredictability. The Tilt-A-Whirl, for example, spins its passengers in one direction, then another, sometimes hesitating between forays and sometimes swinging abruptly from one motion to another. A rider never […]
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19095
In doing your usual excellent job of presenting information in interesting and lighthearted ways, you implied that bug zappers control mosquitoes. In fact, bug zappers don’t attract mosquitoes and therefore kill very few of them. They do kill large numbers of harmless and even beneficial insects, including pollinators and insects such as the crane fly, […]
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- Health & Medicine
Into the Tank: Pressurized oxygen is best at countering carbon monoxide exposure
Oxygen treatment for serious carbon monoxide poisoning prevents long-term brain damage best if delivered as pressurized gas.
- Health & Medicine
Loosen Up
Bacterial toxin may lead to less painful treatments for diabetes and brain cancer.
- Humans
Flame Out: Fishy findings sustain, then snuff, stellar career
Investigators have concluded that a young, up-and-coming physicist repeatedly faked data and committed other types of scientific misconduct.
