Uncategorized
- Math
Toss Out the Toss-Up: Bias in heads-or-tails
Coin tossing is inherently biased, with the coin more likely to land on the same face it started on.
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Your article describes a great theory in a theoretical world. The purpose of a coin toss is to determine an outcome in the real world, however. Did the guys doing the various analyses factor in the effect of the coin bouncing on the ground or being fumbled in an attempted catch? Ed EiermanRomney, W.Va. The […]
- Materials Science
Hard Stuff: Cooked diamonds don’t dent
When exposed to high heat and pressure, single-crystal diamonds become extraordinarily hard.
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- Anthropology
Linguists in Siberia record dying tongues
Researchers trekking through remote Russian villages have identified and interviewed some of the last remaining speakers of two Turkic languages.
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Microbe exhibits out-of-body activity
New evidence indicates that anthrax bacteria may sometimes live freely and reproduce in soil, perhaps exchanging genes with other bacteria, instead of staying dormant in spores.
- Animals
Feral breed lacks domestic dogs’ skill
Wild dogs that haven't lived with people for 5,000 years share little of the capacity of their domesticated cousins for interpreting human gestures.
- Health & Medicine
HIV infects 1 in 100 in New York
A change in how New York City officials identify and track cases of HIV infection has yielded the clearest picture yet of how deeply rooted that city's epidemic has become.
- Health & Medicine
Primate virus found in zoo workers
Viruses related to HIV can be found in the blood of some zoo staff and other people who work with primates, although the infections don't appear to be harmful.
- Archaeology
How agriculture ground to a start
A major advance in agriculture occurred around 11,000 years ago, when western Asians began to walk through patches of wild barley and wheat and scoop handfuls of ripened grains off the ground, a report suggests.
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Blocked gene gives mice super smell
Deactivating a single gene can produce mice with an abnormally sharp sense of smell.
- Humans
Letters from the Feb. 28, 2004, issue of Science News
It’s tough in there In the arts, we say that material, such as paper, that deteriorates readily because of its composition (“News That’s Fit to Print—and Preserve,” SN: 1/10/04, p. 24: News That’s Fit to Print—and Preserve) has “internal vice.” I suppose that could be said of newspapers on several grounds. Lawrence Wallin Santa Barbara, […]
