News
- Animals
Sumo wrestling keeps big ants in line
In a Malaysian ant species, the large workers establish a hierarchy by engaging in spectacular shaking contests.
- Earth
Satellites show Earth is greener
Daily observations from space for nearly 2 decades indicate that our planet is getting greener.
- Earth
Second cancer type linked to shift work
Women who have worked at least a few nights a month for many years appear to face a somewhat increased risk of colorectal cancer.
- Astronomy
Timing a Moonrise: Van Gogh painting put on the calendar
Astronomical detectives suggest that van Gogh painted the picture now known as "Moonrise" in 1889, capturing the rising moon as it appeared at 9:08 p.m. local mean time on July 13.
- Earth
Suspended Drugs: Antibiotics fed to animals drift in air
Borne on dust floating in and around farm buildings, antibiotics given to animals may later be inhaled by people—with possibly detrimental health effects.
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Till IL-6 Do Us Part: Elderly caregivers show harmful immune effect
Elderly people caring for their incapacitated spouses experienced dramatic average increases in the blood concentration of a protein involved in immune regulation, a trend that puts them at risk for a variety of serious illnesses.
- Animals
Moonlighting: Beetles navigate by lunar polarity
A south African dung beetle is the first animal found to align its path by detecting the polarization of moonlight.
- Health & Medicine
Lethal Emergence: Tracing the rise of dengue fever in the Americas
Using the genetics of viruses, scientists have tracked a virulent form of dengue virus in Latin America back to its roots in India.
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A Matter of Taste: Mutated fruit flies bypass the salt
By creating mutant fruit flies with an impaired capacity to taste salt, researchers have identified several genes that contribute to this sensory system in insects.
- Physics
Wild Bunch: First five-quark particle turns up
Physicists have uncovered strong evidence for a family of five-quark particles after decades of finding no subatomic particles with more than three of the fundamental building blocks known as quarks.
- Animals
Strange Y chromosome makes supermom mice
An otherwise rare system of sex determination has evolved independently at least six times in one genus of South American mice.
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Genetic variation sways risk of diabetes
A gene carried by up to 85 percent of the people in the world increases susceptibility to diabetes by about 25 percent.
