Uncategorized
- Anthropology
Snails trace Stone Age trek from Iberia to Ireland
A genetic quirk linking snails in two distant areas suggests people brought escargot on their migration to the Emerald Isle.
- Health & Medicine
Ebola thwarted in mice by drugs for infertility, cancer
Extensive search of existing medicines turns up two that seem to fend off deadly virus.
- Astronomy
Hubble finds hints of a planet oddly far-flung from its star
If confirmed, the dark gap in space debris will challenge astronomers' theories.
- Animals
In dark fishing spiders, males’ postmating nap is permanent
Species prepares for two pairings but goes into a fatal coma after a single encounter.
- Tech
Eye chip sends signals to blind rats’ brains
When struck with light, retinal prostheses stimulate animals' visual cortices.
- Physics
Echoes create an interior map app
To record size and shape of a room, researchers use a speaker, five microphones and some math.
- Animals
Oysters may struggle to build shells as carbon dioxide rises
Ocean acidification could hamper larvae's growth.
- Health & Medicine
Even if science can’t make life longer, perhaps a pill can make a long life better
To live long and prosper (physically, not financially), you’d probably rather take a pill than starve yourself. So far, though, most of the evidence says very-low-calorie diets are the best strategy for living a longer life. At least if you’re a worm or a fly. It hasn’t been established that less food means a longer […]
- Physics
Simple invisibility cloaks hide toys, pets, people
Using everyday materials, two research teams conceal ordinary objects by guiding light around them.
- Animals
Butterflies’ tidy drinking tricks
The long tube of the insects' mouthparts is fluid friendly only at the tip.
- Health & Medicine
DSM-5 enters the diagnostic fray
Fifth edition of the widely used psychiatric manual focuses attention on how mental disorders should be defined.
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Letters to the editor
Invertebrate enigmas I found the recent article “Evolutionary enigmas” (SN: 5/18/13, p. 20) fascinating because I know of another example of an invertebrate animal possessing a “strictly vertebrate” quality. As a high school human anatomy and physiology teacher, I sometimes have my students test the effects of the constituents in cigarette smoke on live Daphnia […]
