Uncategorized
- Earth
Presto, Change-o!
Compared with the snail's-pace processes that normally shape Earth's surface, the impacts of extraterrestrial objects change our planet's geology in a flash.
- Health & Medicine
Standing Up to Gravity
Studies in space can help physicians better understand a disorder in which patients get faint or dizzy while standing.
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From the June 11, 1932, issue
BUTTERFLIES, “WINGED JEWELS,” ARE GEMS AT START OF LIFE Butterflies have been called “winged jewels” so often that the conceit can hardly be considered poetic any longer. Yet the appropriateness of the old metaphor receives new confirmation when we look at the egg of a butterfly, which represents the humblest beginning of its career of […]
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Mendel’s Genetics
The Mendel Museum of Genetics in the Czech Republic offers a well-illustrated online exhibition devoted to Gregor Mendel’s life and work. Pages are devoted to such topics as the mathematics of inheritance and Mendel’s genetics garden. Genetics-inspired artworks are featured in the gallery of contemporary art. Go to: http://www.mendel-museum.org/eng/1online/
- Chemistry
Oxidized plutonium reaches a higher state
A new understanding of the basic chemistry of plutonium could affect the way nuclear waste is stored.
- Physics
Old data yield new signs of extra force
Several experimental findings that conflict with predictions of the prevailing standard model of particle physics suggest that nature may include another force beyond the four known ones.
- Paleontology
All mixed up over birds and dinosaurs
A bit of fossil fakery snookered a team of paleontologists
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Infected butterflies reverse sex roles
In butterfly populations afflicted by male-killing bacteria, females gather in frantic swarms to mate.
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Mass illness tied to contagious fear
Researchers have linked a recent outbreak of illness at a Tennessee high school to psychological factors rather than toxic gas exposure, as originally suspected.
- Health & Medicine
Nerve cells of ALS patients harbor virus
Fragments of viral genetic material show up with unusually high frequency in nerve tissue of patients with ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease, suggesting a link between the virus and this lethal illness.
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For geneticists, interference becomes an asset
A new method of disrupting genes, called RNA interference, works in mouse cells.
- Astronomy
X-ray Data Reveal Black Holes Galore
Using a sensitive, new X-ray telescope, astronomers have identified the origin of the high-energy part of the X-ray background and found that supermassive black holes at the cores of galaxies are far more numerous than visible-light surveys indicate.
