News
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Handsome blue tit dads have more sons
A female blue tit with a particularly dashing mate is more likely to have sons than is a female matched with a ho-hum guy.
- Animals
Who’s on first with hummingbird bills
A survey of 166 hummingbird species links sex differences in bill length to sex differences in plumage and to breeding behavior.
- Health & Medicine
The salmon that went moo
People allergic to milk products could face potentially life-threatening risks by eating casein-treated fish.
- Health & Medicine
This roe’s got a fish-E surprise
Scientists discovered a potent, new form of vitamin E, an antioxidant, in fish adapted for life in cold water.
- Health & Medicine
USDA gives nod to irradiating meats
The federal government approved food irradiation, the only technology known to kill an especially lethal strain of bacteria, for use on raw meats.
- Math
Losing to win
Two games of chance, each guaranteed to give a player a predominance of losses in the long term, can add up to a winning outcome if the player alternates between the two games.
- Math
Squares, primes, and proofs
Mathematicians have proved the so-called local Langlands correspondence, a broad generalization of a surprising connection between prime numbers and perfect squares.
- Earth
Algae Turn Fish into a Lethal Lunch
Scientists demonstrated that some marine mammals have died from eating fish tainted with a neurotoxic diatom.
- Ecosystems
Famine reveals incredible shrinking iguanas
Marine iguanas in the Galápagos Islands are the first vertebrates known to reduce their size during a food shortage and then regrow to their original body lengths.
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Blood cues sex choice for parasites
Malaria parasites shift their female-biased production of offspring toward a more evenly balanced sex ratio as an infection proceeds.
- Physics
Electrical superball pulls itself together
A strong electric field can drive tiny particles of a superconductor to bind themselves together into a remarkably sturdy ball.
- Health & Medicine
Glutamate glut linked to multiple sclerosis
The chemical glutamate can overwhelm nervous-system cells called oligodendrocytes, adding to the nerve damage caused by wayward immune cells in multiple sclerosis.
