News
- Health & Medicine
Vampire spit gives strokes a licking
A drug derived from a component of vampire bat saliva can clear blood clots in the brains of people who have had strokes.
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Lefties, righties take neural sides in perceiving parts
A brain-imaging study indicates that right-handers and left-handers use different, corresponding neural regions to perceive parts of an object while ignoring the larger entity.
- Humans
High costs of CT screening
Whole-body computed tomography scans for asymptomatic disease do not appear cost-effective at this time.
- Earth
Subway air does extra damage
Airborne particles in subterranean transit stations may be more damaging to human cells than are particles from street-level air.
- Planetary Science
Meteorite on Mars
One of the twin rovers on Mars has discovered the first meteorite ever found on a planet other than Earth.
- Humans
Lean Times: Proposed budget keeps science spending slim
After accounting for inflation, President Bush's proposed research-and-development budget for fiscal year 2006 is down 1.4 percent from FY 2005, a figure that has many science agencies tightening their belts.
- Animals
Oops! Grab That Trunk: High-diving ants swing back toward their tree
Certain tree-dwelling ants can direct their descent well enough to veer toward tree trunks and climb back home.
- Earth
Natural or Synthetic? Test reveals origin of chemicals in blubber
Natural compounds that are chemically akin to certain industrial chemicals wend their way up marine food chains and accumulate in whale blubber.
- Paleontology
Groovy Bones: Mammalian ear structure evolved more than once
Fossils of an ancient egg-laying mammal indicate that the characteristic configuration of the bones in all living mammals' ears arose independently at least twice during the group's evolution.
- Health & Medicine
Heartfelt Fear: Findings link stress and cardiac symptoms
Emotional stress can lead to symptoms that mimic a heart attack, even in people without coronary artery blockages, possibly by causing an unusual secretion of hormones.
- Physics
Dial-a-Splash: Thin air quells liquid splatter
How much liquids splatter when drops hit surfaces depends on the surrounding air pressure.
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Asian Kids’ IQ Lift: Reading system may boost Chinese scores
A new study of Chinese and Greek kids suggests that a Chinese IQ advantage over Westerners stems from superior spatial abilities, possibly because the Chinese learn to read pictorial symbols that emphasize spatial perception.
