Uncategorized
- Neuroscience
A brain at rest offers clues to Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s
PET scans reveal that the breakdown of brain networks differs in Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases.
- Health & Medicine
Signs of sleep debt found in the blood
When rats and people skimp on sleep, fats and acids involved in metabolism dwindle.
- Environment
Humans’ environmental rap sheet gets longer
Ice cores reveal human-caused air pollution 240 years before the Industrial Revolution.
- Ecosystems
Noise made by humans can be bad news for animals
Animals live in a world of sounds. Clever experiments are finally teasing out how human-made noise can cause dangerous distractions.
- Astronomy
First stars born later than thought
New results from the Planck mission indicate that the first stars began to shine 550 million years after the Big Bang.
- Science & Society
Steven Weinberg looks back at rise of scientific method
Steven Weinberg’s new book ‘To Explain the World’ illustrates the difficulty of the development of modern science.
- Animals
‘The Cultural Lives of Whales and Dolphins’ offers window into cetacean societies
Dolphins and whales pass cultural knowledge to one another, the authors of a new book argue.
- Plants
Fairly bad pitcher traps triumph in the end
Carnivorous pitcher plant traps rarely catch much, but their lackadaisical hunting turns out not to be so lame after all.
- Environment
Funding canceled for clean coal plant
The Department of Energy has scrapped funding for FutureGen, a project to use new technology to sequester carbon dioxide emissions from a coal power plant.
- Animals
Rainforest frogs flourish with artificial homes
A rainforest frog population grew by about 50 percent when scientists built pools for tadpoles that mimic puddles made by other animals.
- Astronomy
Asteroids or planets might trigger a supernova
Rocky debris falling onto a white dwarf might trigger some supernovas.
- Ecosystems
Termite mound paradises help buffer dry land against climate change
Landscapes dotted by Africa’s great termite mounds look on the verge of turning into desert but are, in fact, more resilient.
