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Urchins of the Seas
If you haven’t really been paying attention for the last 450 million years or so of Earth’s history, London’s Natural History Museum offers a tidy way to catch up with a diverse, venerable group of marine invertebrates known as echinoids. Spectacular color images highlight important distinguishing characteristics of each type of sea urchin. Find out […]
By Science News -
18909
As a university earth science professor, I view my son’s middle and high school science texts with horror. I see similar symptoms in the behavior of some of my undergraduate students. I view the problem as being an educational system in which, through high school, teachers are trained how to teach but not what. College […]
By Science News - Humans
Errant Texts
New studies lambaste popular middle-school science texts for being uninspiring, superficial, and error-ridden.
By Janet Raloff -
Learning in Waves
Learning plays a largely unappreciated role in mental development, according to researchers who examine the variety of tactics children adopt as they attempt to solve problems in mathematics and other areas.
By Bruce Bower -
18907
About the Hippocratic Oath, as quoted in “I do solemnly swear . . .,” “first, do not harm” is not in it, although it has been said so dozens of times. Dorland’s Illustrated Medical Dictionary‘s version of the oath states “. . . never do harm to anyone.” “First, do no harm” (Primum non nocere) […]
By Science News - Humans
I do solemnly swear. . .
An international science organization is surveying codes of ethics from around the world as a first step towards considering whether scientists globally need an analog of the Hippocratic Oath.
By Janet Raloff - Humans
High court gives EPA a partial victory
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency can implement tougher controls on tiny airborne particulates that can get deep inside people's lungs.
By Janet Raloff - Paleontology
Jumbled bones show birds on the menu
A fossilized pellet of partially digested bones of juvenile and baby birds provides the first evidence that birds served as food for predators.
By Sid Perkins - Paleontology
First brachiosaur tooth found in Asia
A fossil tooth found along a dinosaur trackway in South Korea is the first evidence that brachiosaurs roamed Asia.
By Sid Perkins -
18906
As an old noncentenarian, I was getting along very well with “Making sense of centenarians” until I reached Thomas Perls’ remark: “My hope is that we will actually see the development [from genetic research] of medications . . . .” I will bet your great-grandmother survived very well with the least medication possible. It seems […]
By Science News - Health & Medicine
Making Sense of Centenarians
The number of centenarians is expected to double every ten years, making this formerly rare group one of the fastest-growing in the developed world. Researchers are turning to studies of the oldest old to determine how genes, lifestyle, and social factors contribute to longevity.
- Health & Medicine
New drug to treat blood poisoning
For the first time, a drug has reduced deaths from severe sepsis, a life-threatening immune reaction occurring in 750,000 people in the United States each year.