Uncategorized
- Earth
Living in a Fog: Secondhand smoke may dull kids’ wits
Millions of U.S. children may have reading deficits because of exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke.
- Health & Medicine
Not to Your Health: New mechanism proposed for alcohol-related tumors
New findings suggest that alcohol encourages blood vessels to invade tumors, supplying nutrients that promote tumor growth.
-
Hands-on Math Insights: Teachers’ mismatched gestures boost learning
As teachers instruct a child, they typically use their hands as well as their voices, but only certain gestures pack a powerful educational punch.
-
19504
I was disappointed in news coverage of this dinosaur find in China. Science News and others ran an illustration with an obvious mistake. Unless the newly discovered mammal, Repenomamus giganticus, and its smaller cousin, Repenomamus robustus, were unique animals, they did not have legs that emerged from their sides giving them a sprawling, reptilian body […]
- Paleontology
Reptilian Repast: Ancient mammals preyed on young dinosaurs
Two nearly complete sets of fossilized remains from 130-million-year-old rocks are revealing fresh details about the size and dietary habits of ancient mammals, hinting that some of these creatures were large enough to feast on small dinosaurs.
-
19503
The model for the emergence of a population of “cheaters” out of a population of “cooperators” described in this article gives a fresh viewpoint on existing ecosystems—and much more. Might the evolution of asymmetric modern sex from symmetric DNA exchange (like that practiced by paramecia) have been one special case of this emergence? If so, […]
- Math
When Laziness Pays: Math explains how cooperation and cheating evolve
Researchers have developed a mathematical model that helps explain how cooperation and cheating evolve among simple organisms.
- Astronomy
Ultimate Retro: Modern echoes of the early universe
Two teams of astronomers have for the first time detected the surviving notes of a cosmic symphony created just after the Big Bang, when the universe was a foggy soup of matter and radiation.
- Humans
Letters from the January 15, 2005, issue of Science News
Maybe a smoky card game I’m a veterinarian, and, here in west Texas, we see a high occurrence of parvovirus infection in young dogs. It destroys the intestinal villi, allowing gastrointestinal bacteria and their toxins to enter the bloodstream (“Nicotine’s Good Side: Substance curbs sepsis in mice,” SN: 11/6/04, p. 291). I would be very […]
- Health & Medicine
Antibiotics could save nerves
Penicillin and its family of related antibiotics may prevent the type of nerve damage that occurs in people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and other diseases.
- Animals
Sparrows learn song from pieces
Young white-crowned sparrows don't have to hear a song straight through in order to learn it; playing the song in mixed-up paired phrases will do.
- Earth
Really hot water
Hot-water tanks can accumulate radioactive deposits from naturally occurring radioactive material.
