Uncategorized
- Animals
Sponge Moms: Dolphins learn tool use from their mothers
Dolphins that carry sponges on their beaks while looking for food may have learned the trick from their mothers instead of just inheriting a sponge-use gene.
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Cancer Link: MicroRNA grabs the spotlight
A type of genetic molecule known as microRNA can regulate gene activation and, in some cases, accelerate cancer growth.
- Humans
Letters from the June 11, 2005, issue of Science News
Dim prospects To a layman like me, it seems almost impossible that light reflected from a body that lies “much farther from the star than Pluto does from the sun” could be seen from Earth at a distance of 450 light years, when Pluto, only 6 light hours away, reflects so little light to Earth […]
- Earth
Seismic noise can yield maps of Earth’s crust
The small, random, and nearly constant seismic waves that travel in all directions through Earth's crust can be used to make ultrasoundlike images of geologic features within the crust.
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It was interesting to read of processing mundane noise to produce an ultrasound image of the geology of Los Angeles. A big question in the state is the deep structure of San Francisco Bay. Clearly, the bay and the valleys extending to its northwest and southeast form a rift valley. But it’s difficult to observe […]
- Health & Medicine
Tracking down an emerging disease
By examining geographic patterns of outbreaks of a disfiguring skin disease in tropical nations, scientists are finding tentative clues about how the ailment spreads.
- Earth
. . . and churn up big waves, too
As Hurricane Ivan approached the U.S. Gulf Coast last September, sensors detected the largest wave ever measured by instruments.
- Earth
A hurricane can dump a lot of rain . . .
Hurricanes can drop enormous amounts of precipitation in a short amount of time, a phenomenon that residents of Puerto Rico experienced in spades when Hurricane Georges struck the island in 1998.
- Health & Medicine
Obesity and insulin resistance age cells
Conditions known to hasten diabetes in people may also speed aging.
- Plants
World’s fastest plant explodes with pollen
A high-speed camera has revealed the explosive pollen launches of bunchberry dogwood flowers as the fastest plant motion known.
- Planetary Science
Renegade moon
Saturn's outlier moon Phoebe didn't coalesce from material near the ringed planet but was captured from the distant Kuiper belt.
- Anthropology
Faithful Ancestors
A controversial fossil analysis supports the view that, more than 3 million years ago, human ancestors living in eastern Africa favored long-term mating partnerships.
