Uncategorized

  1. 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 […]

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  2. 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 […]

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  3. Humans

    Errant Texts

    New studies lambaste popular middle-school science texts for being uninspiring, superficial, and error-ridden.

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  4. 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.

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  5. 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) […]

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  6. 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.

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  7. 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.

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  8. 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.

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  9. 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.

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  10. 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 […]

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  11. 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.

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  12. 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.

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