News
- Earth
Obsidian artifacts can record ancient climate
The layer of hydrated material that forms on the surface of ancient obsidian artifacts as they age can be used to estimate the temperatures that the artifacts have experienced.
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Blood clot protein is stretchiest natural fiber ever found
The protein that forms the backbone of blood clots can stretch to several times its own length and then snap back to its original size.
- Earth
As glaciers shrink, the Alps get taller
The melting of massive glaciers in the Alps is removing weight from those peaks and causing them to gain altitude.
- Health & Medicine
Scientists find midnight-snack center in brain
Researchers have tracked down the location of a body clock that appears to be regulated by food.
- Health & Medicine
Blood sugar and spice
Eating cayenne pepper with meals may mitigate a hormonal response to food that's linked to diabetes.
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Poor sleep can accompany schizophrenia
The biological clocks in people with schizophrenia often are disturbed, if not broken.
- Astronomy
Braking news: Disks slow down stars
Astronomers have the first clear-cut evidence that rotating young stars are slowed by the planet-forming disks of gas and dust that surround many of them.
- Animals
Hot and hungry bees hit hot spots
New lab experiments suggest that bumblebees like warm flowers and can learn color cues to pick them out.
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Autism’s Cell Off: Neural losses appear in boys, men with disorder
The brains of boys and men with autism, a developmental disorder that impairs communication and social interaction, contain low numbers of neurons in a structure involved in emotion and memory.
- Humans
Racial IQ Gap Narrows: Blacks gain 4 to 7 points on whites
African Americans reduced the racial gap on IQ-test scores by about one-third between 1972 and 2002.
- Earth
Stung Lung: Volatile chemical may cut respiratory capacity
Para-dichlorobenzene, a chemical in some air fresheners and pest-control products, may slightly impair lung function in millions of people.
- Tech
Microbial Mug Shots: Telltale patterns finger bad bacteria
A sophisticated pattern-recognition technique that borrows from automated face recognition may permit identification of harmful bacteria faster and more cheaply than conventional methods do.
