Uncategorized
- Earth
The Salt Flat That Isn’t Flat: World’s largest playa sports ridges, valleys
An innovative field survey of the world's largest salt flat, a New Jersey–size playa high in the Andes, reveals that the barren expanse actually has minuscule, centimeter-scale variations in topography.
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Chimp Champ: Ape aces memory test, outscores people
A young chimp outperforms college students on a test of recalling numbers glimpsed for less than a quarter of a second. With video.
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19906
When Ai, mother of the chimp Amuyu, whose mental feats you reported in this article, appeared in a television documentary a few years ago, I reproduced for myself the number-sequence test she performed and found that, after practice, I could easily outperform her. After reading about Ayumu, I tried the number-recall tests that he and […]
- Health & Medicine
Sickle Save: Skin cells fix anemia in mice
Using a new technique to turn skin cells into stem cells, scientists have corrected sickle cell anemia in mice.
- Plants
Botanists refine family tree for flowering plants
Two research teams have used the biggest array of flowering-plant genes yet to try to reconstruct the elusive evolutionary history of today's flowers.
- Physics
Sharper than expected
A new technique beats the resolution limits of ordinary microscopes in a way that seems to defy conventional optical theory.
- Tech
Tractor beam
Magnetic nanoparticles selectively bind to specific bacteria and can drag them out of a liquid.
- Humans
Strategies to improve teaching
Incorporating emerging data on how kids learn and cement ideas could help schools teach science more effectively, a new report argues.
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19905
This article says that American students’ science and math skills have been falling relative to those of their peers in other countries. How true. Recent tests put the United States in 14th place in an international comparison. But at least we are still in the top 10! Tom ReesorConway, S.C.
- Health & Medicine
Putting tumors on pause
Keeping benign breast tumors from progressing into a malignant cancer can be achieved in mice by reducing a signaling protein.
- Health & Medicine
Diabetes drug shows new potential
Exendin-4 (exenatide) might complement a drug called anti-CD3 monoclonal antibody in reversing type 1 diabetes, a study in mice shows.
- Humans
Divorce is not ecofriendly
Divorce often takes a devastating toll on families, but it has significant impacts on the environment as well.
