News
- Life
Mere fear shrinks bird families
Just hearing recordings of predators, in the absence of any real danger, caused sparrows to raise fewer babies.
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- Life
Cilia control eating signal
Little hairlike appendages in brain cells control weight by sequestering an appetite hormone.
- Health & Medicine
Bedbugs not averse to inbreeding
The pests have also developed ways to resist common insecticides, research shows.
- Life
Building the body electric
Eyes can be grown in a frog’s gut by changing cells’ electrical properties, scientists find, opening up new possibilities for generating and regenerating complex organs.
- Earth
Dead Sea once went dry
The Holy Land’s salt lake ran out of water during a warm spell about 120,000 years ago, which suggests it could disappear again.
- Space
Distant world looks too ripe for life
The first extrasolar planet to be discovered in its star’s habitable zone is probably inhospitably hot.
- Health & Medicine
Presidency not a death sentence
For occupants of the Oval Office, wealth, status and quality medical care more than compensate for any life-shortening effects of stress.
- Life
Eggs have own biological clock
Reproductive cells age independently from the rest of the body, research in worms reveals.
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- Health & Medicine
Scooters save lives of snakebite victims
Nepal project achieves dramatic drop in deaths by using motorbike helpers to rush the stricken to hospital.
- Health & Medicine
E. coli evade detection by going dormant
When stressed, bacteria can temporarily turn comatose and dodge germ-screening tests.
