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Health & MedicineMicrobe Hunt: Novel bacterium infects immune-deficient people
A newfound bacterium can cause illness in people who have a rare, inherited form of immune deficiency.
By Ben Harder -
AnthropologyBranchless Evolution: Fossils point to single hominid root
Fossils of a 4.1-million-year-old human ancestor in Ethiopia bolster the controversial idea that early members of our evolutionary family arose one species at a time rather than branching out into numerous species.
By Bruce Bower -
AnimalsFoodfree growth
Rattlesnakes undergo a hibernation-like state to survive long periods of famine, while continuing to grow longer.
By Janet Raloff -
Health & MedicineAlcohol spurs cancer growth
Downing the human equivalent of two to four alcoholic drinks per day dramatically spurs the growth of cancers implanted in lab mice.
By Janet Raloff -
HumansLetters from the April 15, 2006, issue of Science News
Light shift Regarding “Blasts from the Past: Astronomers begin to go the distance with gamma-ray bursts” (SN: 2/11/06, p. 88), why is it that visible light is shifted to lower frequencies but gamma rays aren’t? Shouldn’t they have become X rays after all that distance? Stephen WoodOrlando, Fla. All wavelengths are redshifted. That means that […]
By Science News -
Do flame retardants make people fat?
Fat cells exposed to brominated flame retardants undergo changes that would appear to foster obesity and type 2 diabetes.
By Janet Raloff -
Health & MedicineBreakfast trends
Although breakfasts tend to pack a lot of nutrition per typical calorie consumed, one in five U.S. residents skips this meal.
By Janet Raloff -
Planetary ScienceAnother visitor to Mars
The newest spacecraft from Earth arrived at the Red Planet on March 10.
By Ron Cowen -
Planetary ScienceMaking Mercury
New computer simulations of Mercury's violent formation account for the planet's abundance of heavy elements and also reveal that some of the debris generated by the collision could have found its way to Earth and Venus.
By Ron Cowen -
19666
Although I love finding out about how traits supposedly unique to humans are shared by animals, I don’t see how the experiment in this article demonstrates episodic memory in hummingbirds. How is this not the simple sensing (smelling) of the sugar drink in the syringes? Yvonne LyerlaSonoma, Calif. Researcher T. Andrew Hurly says that his […]
By Science News -
AnimalsHummingbirds can clock flower refills
Hummingbirds can keep track of when a particular flower has replenished its nectar and is worth visiting again.
By Susan Milius -
ArchaeologyEarly farmers took time to tame wheat
Domesticated varieties of wheat emerged gradually in the prehistoric Near East over a roughly 3,000-year span.
By Bruce Bower