Uncategorized
- Humans
Former baseball players have big, strong bones in old age
Decades later, health benefits of exercise persist in male athletes’ bones.
By Meghan Rosen - Life
To do: Exhibits to explore in the U.S. and London
Highlights include the impending arrival of a T. rex skeleton in Washington, D.C., a pterosaur exhibit coming to New York City, and the history of longevity at the Royal Society in London.
- Tech
English Channel tunnel
First proposed in 1802 as a tunnel for horse-drawn carriages, the Channel Tunnel, or Chunnel, was built starting in 1987 and opened in 1994.
- Cosmology
Cosmic question mark
Two ways of measuring the universe’s expansion rate disagree by about 10 percent. One of the methods may be flawed. Or it could be that a hitherto unobserved phenomenon is at work.
- Health & Medicine
Sudden death
Cardiologists disagree on whether electrocardiograms should be used to screen student athletes for a rare heart condition that can cause them to die suddenly and without warning.
By Laura Beil - Climate
Kangaroo gut microbes make eco-friendly farts
Understanding kangaroos’ low-methane flatulence could help researchers lower greenhouse gas emissions from livestock.
By Beth Mole - Animals
A parasitic cuckoo can be a good thing
Great spotted cuckoo chicks show that brood parasites may benefit their hosts.
By Susan Milius - Plants
Fossil fern showcases ancient chromosomes
Fossil nuclei and chromosomes seen in a 180-million-year-old fern reveals that the plants have stayed mostly the same.
By Meghan Rosen - Life
Human noses know more than 1 trillion odors
Sense of smell displays a vast reach in study of people’s ability to distinguish between scents.
By Bruce Bower - Climate
Climate change may spread Lyme disease
The territory of the ticks that transmit Lyme disease is growing as the climate warms.
By Beth Mole - Paleontology
The dinosaur ‘chicken from hell’
Fossils suggest that a supersized chickenlike reptile called Anzu wyliei roamed what are now the Dakotas roughly 67 million years ago.
- Life
Vitamin A deficit in the womb hurts immune development
Mice deprived of vitamin A in utero grow up with undersized immune organs.
By Nathan Seppa