Uncategorized
- Psychology
People will take pain over being left alone with their thoughts
Evidence suggests that people dislike solitary thought so much that some prefer electric shocks.
- Psychology
Vocal fry
At the lowest registers of the human voice, a creaky, popping sound known as vocal fry emerges.
- Health & Medicine
Supercooling makes livers for transplants last longer
Supercooling a rat liver for transplant greatly increased an organ’s survival time outside the body, potentially opening the door for global allocation of human organs.
- Paleontology
Flightless dino-bird wore full-body feathers
Recently unearthed Archaeopteryx fossil sports full coat of feathers, suggesting feather evolution was more complex than previously thought.
- Neuroscience
Autism may carry a benefit: a buffer against Alzheimer’s
Brain plasticity of people with autism may protect them from Alzheimer’s disease, scientists propose.
- Life
Tibetans live high life thanks to extinct human relatives
DNA shared by modern-day Tibetans and extinct Denisovans suggests people picked up helpful genes through interbreeding with other hominids.
- Life
Stem cell papers retracted
Researchers who reported easy method for making stem cells admit mistakes mar their work, and have retracted their papers from Nature.
- Health & Medicine
Bone marrow transplant could reverse sickle cell in adults
A relatively mild treatment involving radiation and chemo followed by a bone marrow transplant may treat sickle cell disease in adults.
- Psychology
Tablet devices help kids with autism speak up
Talking iPads may help break the near-silence of some kids with autism.
- Environment
Plastic goes missing at sea
A survey of the world’s oceans finds far less polymer trash than expected, and researchers don’t know where the rest of the plastic is.
- Life
Near reefs, microbial mix dictated by coral and algae
A reef’s dominant organism, coral or algae, may determine what kind of bacteria live there.
- Life
One lichen is actually 126 species and counting
One supposedly well-known tropical lichen could really be several hundred kinds.
