3,980 results
3,980 results for:
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Remote Control Minds: Light flashes direct fruit fly behavior
Researchers have exerted a little mind control over fruit flies by designing and installing genetic 'remote controls' within the insects' brains.
- Astronomy
Powerhouse Astronomy: Blazing black hole from the early universe
A jet of matter and radiation emanating from a newly discovered black hole could provide a new probe of the first stars and the radiation left over from the Big Bang.
- Paleontology
Large shadows fell on Cretaceous landscape
Paleontologists have unearthed the remains of what they believe could be the largest flying creature yet discovered—a 12-meter-wingspan pterosaur.
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Designer Flu
How scientists made a killer virus airborne — and who should know.
- Neuroscience
The Inconstant Gardener
Microglia, the same immune cells that help sculpt the developing brain, may do damage later in life .
- Life
Stem cell advance uses cloning
A method that uses eggs to do genetic reprogramming is successful in humans.
- Materials Science
To make bronze, tin flakes do a wild dance
Upsetting some prevailing ideas about how alloys form, rafts of tin atoms jitterbug madly around on a pure copper surface and leave spots of bronze in their wakes.
- Math
Prime proof zeros in on crucial numbers
A new theorem may lead to a proof of Catalan's conjecture, a venerable problem in number theory concerning consecutive powers of whole numbers.
- Health & Medicine
Vitaminlike compound eases rare disorder
A vitaminlike substance called coenzyme Q10 helps people with familial cerebellar ataxia, a hereditary disorder that damages the spine and the part of the brain responsible for coordination.
- Math
Golden Blossoms, Pi Flowers
In the head of a sunflower, the tiny florets that turn into seeds are typically arranged in two intersecting families of spirals, one winding clockwise and the other winding counterclockwise. Count the number of florets along a spiral and you are likely to find 21, 34, 55, 89, or 144. Indeed, if 34 floret (or […]
- Math
A Geometric Superformula
The notion of a simple equation that you can use to generate a wide variety of geometric shapes is an immensely appealing one. Johan Gielis of Antwerp, Belgium, proposes one such formula in the March American Journal of Botany. “Many geometrical forms, both in nature and culture, can be interpreted as modified circles,” Gielis states. […]
- Math
Goldbach Computations
In 1742, historian and mathematician Christian Goldbach (1690–1764) wrote a letter to Leonhard Euler (1707–1783) in which he suggested, in effect, that every integer greater than 5 is the sum of three prime numbers. A prime number is evenly divisible only by itself and 1. Nowadays, Goldbach’s conjecture is expressed in the following equivalent form: […]
