News
- Humans
Unfounded Fear: Scared to fly after 9/11? Don’t reach for the car keys
A new analysis of transportation in the United States shows that flying remains a much safer way to travel than driving, even when airline fatalities resulting from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks are included.
- Animals
Stalking Larvae: How an ancient sea creature grows up
Scientists have finally observed living larvae of a sea lily, an ancient marine invertebrate related to starfish.
- Health & Medicine
Determined at Birth? Kidney makeup may set hypertension risk
People lacking a full complement of blood-filtering nephrons in their kidneys at birth are at increased risk of developing high blood pressure.
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Ragweed may boom with global warming
An experiment that includes artificially heating plots of tallgrass prairie suggests that global warming could boost growth of ragweed, putting more pollen into the air for allergy sufferers.
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Speech veers left in babies’ brains
The beginnings of left-brain specialization for speech understanding appear in 2-to-3-month-old babies as they listen to an adult talk, according to a new brain-scan investigation.
- Health & Medicine
Researchers target sickle-cell cure
Using stem cell transplants and a compound called antithymocyte globulin, researchers in Paris have cured 59 of 69 children of sickle-cell disease.
- Earth
Rivers run to it
Increasing freshwater discharges into Arctic waters could disrupt important patterns of deep-water ocean circulation that affect climate.
- Chemistry
Soy and oat combo protects against UV
Soybean oil and a natural chemical in oat bran have been chemically combined to make a new sunscreen.
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A fish’s solution to broken hearts
The zebrafish can regenerate missing heart muscle.
- Astronomy
Model Tracks Storms from the Sun
Teams of astronomers have developed a reliable method for predicting the time it takes for solar storms to arrive at Earth and have gathered observations confirming a model of how the sun's outer atmosphere, or corona, manages to store up enough magnetic energy to induce these upheavals.
- Health & Medicine
Double cord-blood transplant helps cancer patients
Two umbilical-cord-blood transplants may work better than one for cancer patients.
- Health & Medicine
Clear Skin: Injections counteract psoriasis in patients
Injections of an immune system protein called interleukin-4 can alleviate skin problems in people with psoriasis.
