Uncategorized
- Health & Medicine
Determined at Birth? Kidney makeup may set hypertension risk
People lacking a full complement of blood-filtering nephrons in their kidneys at birth are at increased risk of developing high blood pressure.
By Nathan Seppa - Math
Spinning to a Rolling Stop
Spin a coin on a tabletop. As it loses energy and tips toward the surface, the coin begins to roll on its rim, wobbling faster and faster and faster. Toward the end, the coin generates a characteristic rattling sound of rapidly increasing frequency until it suddenly stops with a distinctive shudder. Mathematician H. Keith Moffatt […]
- Math
A Remarkable Dearth of Primes
The pursuit of prime numbers–integers evenly divisible only by themselves and 1–can lead to all sorts of curious results and unexpected patterns. In some instances, you may even encounter a mysterious absence of primes. In 1960, Polish mathematician Waclaw Sierpinski (1882–1969) proved that there are infinitely many odd integers k such that k times 2n […]
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Ragweed may boom with global warming
An experiment that includes artificially heating plots of tallgrass prairie suggests that global warming could boost growth of ragweed, putting more pollen into the air for allergy sufferers.
By Susan Milius -
Speech veers left in babies’ brains
The beginnings of left-brain specialization for speech understanding appear in 2-to-3-month-old babies as they listen to an adult talk, according to a new brain-scan investigation.
By Bruce Bower - Health & Medicine
Researchers target sickle-cell cure
Using stem cell transplants and a compound called antithymocyte globulin, researchers in Paris have cured 59 of 69 children of sickle-cell disease.
By Nathan Seppa - Earth
Rivers run to it
Increasing freshwater discharges into Arctic waters could disrupt important patterns of deep-water ocean circulation that affect climate.
By Janet Raloff - Chemistry
Soy and oat combo protects against UV
Soybean oil and a natural chemical in oat bran have been chemically combined to make a new sunscreen.
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A fish’s solution to broken hearts
The zebrafish can regenerate missing heart muscle.
By John Travis -
19218
Thank you for the article about the wild Bactrian camel. However, one false impression needs correction. The Wild Camel Protection Foundation (WCPF) is not planning a program of captive wild camel embryo transfer in order to release the offspring into the wild. The program’s immediate aim is to increase the number of captive wild stock […]
By Science News - Animals
Camelid Comeback
The future of vicuñas in South America and wild camels in Asia hinges on decisions being made now about their management.
- Astronomy
Model Tracks Storms from the Sun
Teams of astronomers have developed a reliable method for predicting the time it takes for solar storms to arrive at Earth and have gathered observations confirming a model of how the sun's outer atmosphere, or corona, manages to store up enough magnetic energy to induce these upheavals.
By Ron Cowen