Uncategorized
- Physics
Cassini confirms Einstein’s theory
En route to a 2004 rendezvous with Saturn, the Cassini spacecraft has verified a key prediction of Einstein’s theory of general relativity to an accuracy 50 times better than that of previous measurements.
- Health & Medicine
Was President Taft cognitively impaired?
President William Howard Taft apparently had sleep apnea, a breathing disorder that could explain his propensity to nod off.
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Faint smells of schizophrenia
A loss of the ability to tell different odors apart may represent an early sign of schizophrenia.
- Earth
Weekend weather really is different
Analyses of more than 40 years of weather data from around the world reveal that in some regions the difference between daily high and low temperatures on weekend days varies significantly from that measured on weekdays.
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Mothers reveal their baby faces
Mothers in different cultures use three distinctive facial expressions to communicate with their infants.
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Rats join the roster of clones
Scientists have finally cloned the rat, setting the stage for the creation of genetically engineered rats that can be used to study many more diseases in humans.
- Health & Medicine
Making the heart burn
Burning chest pain during a heart attack may stem from a protein that also responds to chili peppers.
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The article states that “trichromacy originally evolved for picking out the most nutritious leaves.” I teach high school students to avoid this kind of statement in regard to evolution. The trait arose by accident (nicely explained in the article) and then became more abundant in the population because it conferred an advantage on the organisms […]
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Visionary Research
Scientists are debating why primates evolved full color vision and whether that development led to a reduced sense of smell.
- Math
A Magic Knight’s Tour
For as long as chessboards have existed, there have been puzzles involving chessboards and chess pieces. Some of the most enduring conundrums involve knights. Example of a knight’s tour in which the rows and columns have the same sum (260), but the diagonals add up to 348 and 168. According to the rules of chess, […]
- Health & Medicine
Coronary Fix: Coated inserts keep vessels unclogged
Mesh cylinders called stents, which doctors use to prop open coronary arteries, work better when they are coated with sirolimus, a drug that inhibits the accumulation of cells along the device.
- Planetary Science
News Splash: Strong evidence of lakes on Titan
Using Earth-based radar to penetrate the thick atmosphere of Saturn's moon Titan, planetary scientists have the best evidence yet that the smog-shrouded moon has lakes or oceans of hydrocarbons over large stretches of its surface.
