News
- Health & Medicine
Night lights may foster cancer
Regularly working through the night appears to come at a steep cost—a heightened risk of cancer.
- Humans
Transport emissions sizable, and rising
Almost one-sixth of the carbon dioxide produced by human activity since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution resulted from the transport of goods and people—an emissions fraction that's increasing by the year.
- Physics
Bathtub Optics: Bending light also shifts it sideways
When light bends at an interface, it also shifts depending on its polarization. With animation.
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Positive Signal: Lone protons carry messages between cells
In roundworms, protons carry signals from cells in the intestine to muscle cells, raising the possibility that protons might act as neurotransmitters in mammal brains.
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Seeing Again: Blind fish parents have fry that see
Cross two strains of blind cavefish that have lived in the dark for a million years, and some of their offspring will be able to see.
- Astronomy
Heavy Find: Weighty neutron stars may rule out exotic core
Neutron stars may be the weirdest stars in the universe, but they don't seem to be very strange, a weighty new report finds.
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Mind Control: Hypnosis offers amnesia clues
Results of a new study using hypnosis may shed light on the process of memory retrieval and the potential for one part of the brain to block it.
- Earth
Hued Afterglow: Fingerprinting diamonds via phosphorescence
The eerie phosphorescence displayed by a rare form of blue diamond can be used as an easy, cheap, and nondestructive way to identify individual gemstones and to distinguish natural blue diamonds from synthetic ones.
- Health & Medicine
Risky DNA: Autism studies yield fresh genetic leads
Two new studies point to the diverse genetic roots of autism and related developmental disorders, while other evidence questions the claim that mercury-based childhood vaccines have contributed to rising autism rates.
- Tech
Energy forest
Silicon nanowires can at least double the storage capacity of lithium-ion batteries.
- Health & Medicine
Down syndrome’s anti-tumor effect
The chromosomal abnormality that causes Down syndrome might protect against some solid tumors.
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Foster care benefits abandoned kids
Orphan infants living in Romanian institutions who were randomly assigned to receive foster care showed marked improvements in thinking and reasoning skills by age 4-1/2, compared with their peers who remained institutionalized.
