Uncategorized
- Astronomy
Cosmic Triumph: Satellite confirms birth theory of universe
The most detailed portrait ever taken of the radiation left over from the Big Bang provides fresh evidence that the universe began with a tremendous growth spurt, expanding from subatomic scales to the size of a grapefruit in less than a trillionth of a second.
- Earth
Manufacturers agree to phase out nonstick chemical
Complying with a request from the Environmental Protection Agency, the companies that make the likely carcinogen perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) have agreed to phase out its release worldwide by 2015.
- Anthropology
Evolution persisted in agricultural era
Natural selection has continued to propagate survival-enhancing gene variants in human populations over the past 10,000 years, according to a new genetic analysis.
- Plants
Small difference factored big in rice domestication
A change in a single letter of a rice plant's genetic code gave it the ability to hold onto grains until harvest.
- Tech
Viral building blocks
Proteins taken from a spherical virus and combined with pieces of DNA can form tubular nanostructures, researchers report.
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19655
I am rather surprised at all the attention the find mentioned in this article is getting. Some would think that these mammals caused the downfall of the dinosaurs, but the fossil record suggests a very different scenario. There is no evidence of possum-to-coyote–size mammals for the 70-odd million years that the dinosaurs ruled the planet. […]
- Paleontology
Out of the Shadows
An ongoing flurry of fossil finds is triggering a reevaluation of how early mammals and their close kin eked out an existence during the Age of Dinosaurs.
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19654
Light pollution is a side effect of cheap fossil fuels. As such, we may be closer to the end of this problem than most people think. Electricity is still the best bargain in the civilized world, but blowing it off into the night sky has always been folly. When energy prices reach a high-enough level, […]
- Ecosystems
Light All Night
New digital images demonstrate that artificial light from urban areas penetrates deep into some of America's most remote wild places, where it may disrupt ecosystems that have evolved with a nightly quota of darkness.
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19653
I wouldn’t allow a child of mine to receive SSRIs for treatment of depression, unless that depression were truly crippling and my child required in patient care and a 24-hour suicide watch. The marginally lower effect of talk therapy alone, while presenting half the risk of committing suicide and imposing no unknown long-term pharmacological side […]
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Prescription for Controversy
Increasing concerns about the efficacy and safety of a popular class of antidepressant drugs, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, especially in depressed youth, has sparked regulatory action and scientific debate.
- Humans
Letters from the March 18, 2006, issue of Science News
Comfort zones Just because living organisms were found in extreme conditions does not necessarily mean they were created in these localities (“Is Anybody out There?” SN: 1/21/06, p. 42). Another possibility is that the creation of life took place under more amenable conditions and that these organisms, through evolution, gradually adapted as the conditions changed. […]
