News
- Earth
Warm spell did little for Eocene flora
A rapid warming period that began the Eocene epoch dramatically reshaped North America's animal community but not the continent's plants.
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Sight sounds off in brains of the deaf
Deprive the brain of access to sounds, and it reorganizes so that tissue typically consigned to handling acoustic information instead joins the visual system.
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Babies show an eye for faces
By 9 weeks of age, babies can learn to recognize and favor a new face in a matter of minutes.
- Health & Medicine
Genomes of dangerous bacteria exposed
Researchers unveiled the genomes of bacteria that cause severe food poisoning, typhoid fever, and the plague that devastated the Middle Ages.
- Health & Medicine
Cancer drugs may thwart Huntington’s
Drugs developed to fight cancer could also be effective against Huntington's disease and several related neurodegenerative conditions.
- Earth
Tube worms like it hot, but larvae not
The larvae of some tube worms that attach themselves to the seafloor around hydrothermal vents can't stand the heat there, but they go into a state of suspended animation when they drift into the chilly water nearby.
- Earth
Desert glass: Is it baked Australia?
A profusion of fused, glassy material found on the desert plain of southern Australia might be the result of the intense heat from an extraterrestrial impact.
- Health & Medicine
Heart pump extends patients’ survival
Patients who have an implanted device to help the heart pump blood have a higher survival rate than patients getting only heart medication.
- Astronomy
SOHO craft gets the lowdown on sunspots
Using sound waves to obtain the first clear picture of the structure beneath the surface of a sunspot, scientists say they now have an explanation for why these dark blemishes-sites of intense magnetic activity-can persist for days.
- Archaeology
Farmers took fast track in settling Europe
A review of radiocarbon evidence indicates that farming groups colonized southern Europe over no more than 100 to 200 years, beginning around 7,400 years ago.
- Paleontology
New fossils threaten an extinction theory
Recent discoveries of long-dead marine invertebrates call into question the occurrence of a catastrophic global extinction during the Late Devonian period, between 385 and 375 million years ago.
- Animals
She-male garter snakes: Some like it hot
Male garter snakes that emerge from hibernation and attract a mob of deluded male suitors may just be looking for safety in numbers and body heat.
