News
- Health & Medicine
Working in a cotton mill has bright side
People who work amid bales of raw cotton are less likely to get lung cancer than are people in the general population, a study of Chinese women indicates. While past research has shown that workers in a cotton mill tend to develop shortness of breath, chronic cough, and other health problems, some scientists also noted […]
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Feeling Right from Wrong: Brain’s social emotions steer moral judgments
A new study of people who suffered damage to a brain area involved in social sentiments supports the notion that emotional, intuitive reactions typically guide decisions about moral dilemmas.
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Not So Wimpy: Antimalarial mosquito has an edge in tests
For the first time, mosquitoes engineered to resist malaria have shed their underbug image and outperformed regular mosquitoes in a lab test.
- Planetary Science
Solar-staring spacecraft shows its flare
A new image of the sun's chromosphere, a layer sandwiched between the sun's visible surface and its outer atmosphere, shows a surprisingly complex structure of filaments of roiling gas that promises to shed new light on why the sun erupts.
- Health & Medicine
Balancing Act: Excess steroids during pregnancy may pose risks for offspring
Heavy amounts of steroids taken during pregnancy can have long-term deleterious effects on offspring, a study of monkeys shows.
- Health & Medicine
Risky Flames: Firefighter coronaries spike during blazes
A disproportionate number of heart disease deaths among firefighters occur during blazes.
- Physics
Closer to Vanishing: Bending light as a step toward invisibility cloaks
Invisibility cloaks may be a long shot, but new optical tricks could help in the design of future computers.
- Chemistry
Waistline Worry: Common chemicals might boost obesity
A family of chemicals implicated in testosterone declines may also be contributing to recent spikes in obesity and diabetes.
- Earth
Young and Restless: Ancient Earth shows moving crust
The oldest rocks in the world show that Earth's shifting crust began its tectonic movements almost 4 billion years ago.
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Gene predicts sleepy performance
Variants in a circadian-rhythm gene predict how well people perform mental tasks when sleep deprived.
- Earth
World’s climate map gets an update
A century-old system of categorizing the world's climates has been updated to include modern weather data, thereby providing researchers with a tool to better verify results of their computer simulations.
- Health & Medicine
Hepatitis B found in wrestlers’ sweat
Traces of hepatitis B have turned up in the perspiration of wrestlers, suggesting that the virus could spread to their opponents and teammates.
