News
- Health & Medicine
Drug Racing: Gene tied to HIV-drug response
A genetic mutation more common in blacks than in whites increases the odds that people taking a common HIV medicine will suffer side effects that lead them to halt treatment.
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Monkey Love: Male marmosets think highly of sex
A new brain-imaging study in marmosets suggests that males sexually aroused by the scent of females may be thinking carefully before they mate, opposing the notion that nonhuman male mammals act purely upon a primal urge.
- Earth
Nanosponges: Plastic particles pick up pollutants
Nanometer-scale polymer particles can extract pollutants from contaminated soil.
- Earth
Catching Waves: Ocean-surface changes may mark tsunamis
A new theoretical model that describes a tsunami's interaction with winds may explain enigmatic observations associated with the waves and could lead to a technique for spotting them long before they hit shore.
- Ecosystems
Bird Dilemma: More seabirds killed when boats discard fewer fish
A long-term study of great skuas shows that when fishing fleets discard less fish, birds that scavenge for waste make up for the loss by increasing attacks on other seabirds.
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Neural Aging Walks Tall: Aerobic activity fuels elderly brains, minds
Moderate amounts of regular walking improve brain function and attention in formerly sedentary seniors.
- Physics
Candy Science: M&Ms pack more tightly than spheres
Squashed or stretched versions of spheres snuggle together more tightly than randomly packed spheres do.
- Animals
Flesh Eaters: Bees that strip carrion also take wasp young
A South American bee that ignores flowers and collects carrion from carcasses has an unexpected taste for live, abandoned wasp young.
- Anthropology
Some Primates’ Sheltered Lives: Baboons, chimps enter the realm of cave
In separate studies, researchers have gathered the first systematic evidence showing that baboons and chimpanzees regularly use caves, a behavior many anthropologists have attributed only to people and our direct ancestors.
- Health & Medicine
Pregnancy Alert: Proteins may predict preeclampsia
Blood concentrations of two proteins that affect blood vessel growth appear to foretell the pregnancy condition known as preeclampsia.
- Paleontology
Early Flight? Winged insects appear surprisingly ancient
New analyses of a fossil suggest that winged insects may have emerged as early as 400 million years ago.
- Tech
Snappy DNA: Long strand folds into octahedron
By harnessing the self-assembling properties of DNA, researchers coerced a single strand of the genetic material to assume the shape of an octahedron.
