Gory Details

The bizarre side of science

  1. Humans

    Could the menstrual cycle have shaped the evolution of music?

    A new study suggesting that women select better musicians shows how women’s role in evolution is being redefined.

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  2. Chemistry

    How urine will get us to Mars

    A new recycling system turns pee into drinking water and energy, a small step toward really long-term space travel.

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  3. Chemistry

    This is what happens when you pee in the pool

    Swimming pools are basically chemical toilets, but here’s why I’ll keep swimming.

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  4. Health & Medicine

    This rare skull-thickening disease led to a 3-D-printed replacement

    A skull implant made with a 3-D printer replaced the 2-inch-thick skull of a Dutch woman with the rare van Buchem disease.

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  5. Psychology

    Your fear is written all over your face, in heat

    Thermal images of bank clerks who’ve been robbed reveal a cold nose can be a sign of post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD.

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  6. Science & Society

    Stone throwers might toss fingerprints into police hands

    An Israeli police lab is studying methods to develop fingerprints on rock to identify stone throwers.

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  7. Psychology

    Attractiveness studies are hot, or not

    Studies that link attractiveness to other traits are often misinterpreted, including recent studies of nose bacteria and of cycling ability.

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  8. Genetics

    What your earwax says about your ancestry

    Both armpit and ear wax secretions are smellier in Caucasians than in Asians, thanks to a tiny genetic change that differs across ethnic groups.

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  9. Science & Society

    Alternatives needed to do-it-yourself feces swaps

    Three researchers are calling for the FDA to regulate feces as a human tissue rather than a drug to make it easier for doctors to perform fecal transplants.

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  10. Animals

    Why was Marius, the euthanized giraffe, ever born?

    The problem of ‘surplus’ zoo animals reveals a divide on animal contraceptives.

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  11. Health & Medicine

    Introducing the first bank of feces

    A new nonprofit called OpenBiome is hoping to do for fecal transplants what blood banks have done for transfusions. It’s a kind of Brown Cross.

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  12. Life

    Some animals eat their moms, and other cannibalism facts

    A new book surveys those who eat their own kind, revealing some surprises about who’s eating whom.

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