Uncategorized
- Health & Medicine
Surgery shows promise in treating persistent heartburn
Ring-shaped device around esophagus prevents acid reflux so that patients can stop taking drugs.
- Space
Smallest planet found orbiting distant star
NASA’s Kepler space telescope snags an exoplanet tinier than Mercury.
- Math
A mathematician puts Fermat’s Last Theorem on an axiomatic diet
Fermat’s Last Theorem is so simple to state, but so hard to prove. Though the 350-year-old claim is a straightforward one about integers, the proof that University of Oxford mathematician Andrew Wiles finally created for it nearly two decades ago required almost unimaginably complex theoretical machinery. The proof was a dazzling demonstration of that machinery’s […]
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- Health & Medicine
Smoking damages mouse brains
Signs of Alzheimer’s disease appear after the rodents breathe cigarette smoke.
- Tech
Imaging technique offers look inside hearing loss
Two-photon microscopy visualizes hair cells in the inner ear, offering insights into processes leading to deafness.
- Humans
Origins of alcohol consumption traced to ape ancestor
Eating fermented fruit off the ground may have paved way for ability to digest ethanol.
- Earth
Blood levels of BPA become source of controversy
New data question whether human blood measurements of BPA reflect sample contamination or just exaggerated exposures.
- Earth
Aquatic predators affect carbon-storing plant life
Freshwater predator species can prevent the overgrazing of plants that suck up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
- Life
Bird, human tweets come from similar parts of the brain
Genetics study finds parallels in birdsong and language.
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2013 AAAS meeting
Highlights from the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Boston, February 14-18, 2013.
- Astronomy
Russia meteor virtually impossible to see coming
Current and planned efforts to track near-Earth objects focus on bigger quarry.
