Uncategorized
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Dry air might boost flu transmission
Germs prefer an environment that’s cool, dry and UV-free, experiments suggest.
- Chemistry
Cockroach brains, coming to a pharmacy near you
Insect tissue extracts show antibacterial activity in lab experiments.
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Science Future for September 25, 2010
September 25Free admission day to 17 museums in Houston. See www.houstonmuseumdistrict.org September 30Peter Gleick gives an evening talk in San Francisco on Bottled & Sold, his book about the bottled water industry. Ages 21 and up. See www.calacademy.org October 4 – 6 Nobel Prizes announced for medicine or physiology, physics and chemistry. Go to http://nobelprize.org
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Science Past from the issue of September 24, 1960
SCLEROSIS AND COSMIC RAYS — Radiation bombarding the earth from space may be a factor in the occurrence of multiple sclerosis, the Harvard University neurologist Dr. John S. Barlow believes.… Dr. Barlow’s statistical study of the distribution of multiple sclerosis shows that the frequencies of occurrence of the disease vary systematically with geomagnetic latitude. The […]
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Book Review: Islam, Science, and the Challenge of History by Ahmad Dallal
Review by Tom Siegfried.
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Bulletproof Feathers by Robert Allen, ed.
Photos and illustrations highlight how nature inspires technology, from airplane wings that change shape to stainproof fabrics. BULLETPROOF FEATHERS BY ROBERT ALLEN, ED. University of Chicago Press, 2010, 192 p., $35.
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What’s Eating You? People and Parasites by Eugene H. Kaplan
An ecologist takes readers on an engaging, if sometimes squirm-worthy, tour of the world’s hangers-on. WHAT’S EATING YOU? BY EUGENE H. KAPLAN Princeton University Press, 2010, 302 p., $26.95.
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Off the Grid by Nick Rosen
A journalist travels the country to visit Americans who, for a variety of reasons, have opted out of the electrical grid and into alternative lifestyles. OFF THE GRID BY NICK ROSEN Penguin, 2010, 292 p., $15.
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Letters
New views of enzymes “Enzymes exposed” (SN: 7/17/10, p. 22) was an interesting read, but is there more to the story? When biologists consider the lock-and-key model for enzymes, I wonder if they are stuck in the static stick-and-ball mentality of traditional chemistry. Is biochemistry really static or is it dictated by the vibrational mode […]
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Biomedical research needs more consistent funding
This summer William Talman became president of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, an organization that advocates the advancement of biological and biomedical research. He is a professor of neurology and neuroscience at the University of Iowa in Iowa City and a practicing physician at the university’s hospital and at the Iowa City […]
- Health & Medicine
Defining normal in the brain
A new growth curve paves way for scans to be used to spot early signs of autism, schizophrenia or other disorders.
- Space
Mars shows signs of recent activity
The surface of Mars had abundant liquid water as well as volcanic activity during the past 100 million years, a new study of the Martian atmosphere suggests.
