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Television
Nostalgic Voyager documentary relives first exploration of the solar system
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A species gets only one chance to explore its solar system for the first time.
For humans, that chance began 40 years ago this month, when the twin Voyager spacecraft embarked on their “grand tour” of the solar system. A new PBS documentary airing on August 23, The Farthest: Voyager in Space, chronicles their journey to send home the first close-ups of the giant...
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News
Here’s how an asteroid impact would kill you
It won’t be a tsunami. Nor an earthquake. Not even the crushing impact of the space rock. No, if an asteroid kills you, gusting winds and shock waves from falling and exploding space rocks will most likely be to blame. That’s one of the conclusions of a recent computer simulation effort that investigated the fatality risks of more than a million possible asteroid impacts.
In one extreme...
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Science & the Public
Growth-promoting antibiotics: On the way out?
In 1950, Science News ran a story showing for the first time that a potent antibiotic could do more than knock out disease. New animal experiments, we reported, “cast the antibiotic in a spectacular new role” as a livestock growth promoter. Lacing the food of hogs with trace quantities of this drug increased meat yields by up to 50 percent, scientists at Lederle Laboratories had reported at a...
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News
E. coli evade detection by going dormant
Researchers think they now know why a particularly virulent form of E. coli that swept through northern Germany last May was so hard to trace: The germs responsible eluded detection by going into a self-induced deep sleep.
Two new studies show that when stressed, E. coli can turn off most signs of life. That’s a problem for food-safety officials because their germ-...
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News
Obesity messes with the brain
Obesity subtly diminishes memory and other features of thinking and reasoning even among seemingly healthy people, an international team of scientists reports. At least some of these impairments appear reversible through weight loss. Researchers also report one likely mechanism for those cognitive deficits: damage to the wiring that links the brain’s information-processing regions.
A...
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Feature
Big Fishing Yields Small Fish
Sharks, billfish, cod, tuna and other fish-eating fish — the sea’s equivalents to lions on the Serengeti — dominated the marine world as recently as four decades ago. They culled sick, lame and old animals and kept populations of marine herbivores in check, preventing marine analogs of antelopes from overgrazing their environment.
But the reign of large...
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News
PCBs may impair fertility
PCB exposure may interfere with a woman’s ability to get pregnant, a new study of women undergoing in vitro fertilization suggests. The study of 765 women found that those whose blood contained the highest levels of a particular form of polychlorinated biphenyl — one known as PCB 153 — were 41 percent less likely to give birth than women with the lowest levels.
One contributing factor...
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News
Mice robbed of darkness fatten up
When it comes to weight management, the timing of dining is pivotal, a new study indicates. At least in rodents, food proved especially fattening when consumed at the wrong time of day.
As nocturnal animals, mice normally play and forage at night, often in complete darkness. With even dim chronic illumination of their nighttime environment, however, the animals’ hormonal dinner bells...
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Science & the Public
Coffee perks up memory and balance in geriatric animals
CHICAGO Millions of Americans start their day with a cup of coffee and then reach for refills when their energy or attention flags. But new research in rats suggests that for the aging brain, coffee may serve as more than a mere stimulant. It can boost memory and the signaling essential to motor coordination.
But here's the rub: If the same effects hold for humans, downing a morning...
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News
Salty Old Cellulose: Tiny fibers found in ancient halite deposits
Researchers have unearthed the planet's oldest-known intact biological macromolecules, microscopic bits of cellulose from 253-million-year-old salt deposits in the southwestern United States.
The remarkable preservation of the material suggests that under the right conditions, cellulose could last more than 1 billion years. Such a long-lived molecule, a chain of simple...