All Stories
- Anthropology
Chimps grasp at social identities
Researchers contend that neighboring communities of wild chimpanzees develop distinctive styles of mutual grooming to identify fellow group members and foster social solidarity.
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18905
“Jiggling the cosmic ooze” states that Leon Lederman won the Nobel prize in 1988 for “codiscovering the muon.” It is a small error, but more correctly, Lederman won the Nobel prize for codiscovering the mu neutrino. The muon was discovered in cosmic rays in 1937–1938 by researchers using cloud-chamber techniques. Peter B. Kahn State University […]
- Physics
Jiggling the Cosmic Ooze
Spurred by the first tentative sightings after a decades-old search, physicists seeking the universe's mass-giving particle — the Higgs boson — have fired up the world's highest-energy particle collider to join the pursuit.
- Health & Medicine
Two genes tied to common birth defect
Researchers report that defects in either of two specific genes may be responsible for DiGeorge syndrome, the second most common cause of congenital heart defects in newborns.
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Baboon rumps signal quality of motherhood
The size of the swellings on a female baboon’s rump match her physical prowess for motherhood, a rare case of reproductive-quality advertisement in females.
- Earth
Is there a vent in the global greenhouse?
Satellite observations of ocean temperatures in tropical regions of the western Pacific suggest that when ocean temperatures there warm up, the amount of heat-trapping cirrus clouds decreases, possibly providing a heat-venting effect that could help reduce global warming.
- Planetary Science
Debate over life in Mars rock rekindles
Two recent studies could inject new life into the argument that a 4-billion-year-old Martian meteorite contains fossils of bacteria from the Red Planet but several scientists say the reports fall short of resurrecting that notion.
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18904
In regards to “Dinosaur fossil yields feathery structures,” the scattered feathery structures may have belonged to an antecedent of Archaeopteryx but not necessarily a Sinornithosaurus. Given the context and location of the fossils, it seems more likely they belonged to the raptor’s last meal before its untimely demise. Aaron Stough Roanoke, Va.
- Paleontology
Dinosaur fossil yields feathery structures
Researchers believe they have found primitive feathers on the remains of Sinornithosaurus millenii, a 124-million-year-old raptor dinosaur from Liaoning, China.
- Materials Science
Scientists belt out a novel nanostructure
Researchers have used metal oxides to make microscopic ribbonlike structures that could prove useful for developing future nanoscale devices.
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Self-illusions come back to bite students
College freshmen who greatly overestimate their academic potential feel confident and happy for a while, but as they move toward graduation, these students feel progressively worse about themselves and become less involved with their schoolwork, a new study finds.
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18903
One can question the basic assumptions of the people doing the study described in “Sedentary off-hours link to Alzheimer’s.” One would hope that going to church is not less an intellectual endeavor than others, though it may be less physical than knitting or gardening. Even TV can be intellectual if viewers are testing their ability […]
