News
- Health & Medicine
Genes of cholera germ deciphered
The bacterium that causes cholera has nearly 4,000 genes on its two circular chromosomes.
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Feedback matters for getting the joke
Plausible information about how others react to jokes colors a college student's own perception of the humor value of the material.
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In gauging beauty, congeniality counts
People judge others who have positive personality traits by more lenient physical criteria for attractiveness than they do those about whom they have no personality information.
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Older isn’t wiser in moral reasoning
Researchers find more endorsement of immanent justice, the belief that the natural world punishes human misdeeds, among college students than sixth-graders.
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Out of China: SARS virus’ genome hints at independent evolution
The newly identified SARS virus is the product of a long and private evolutionary history, clues from its genome suggest.
- Materials Science
Blunt Answer: Cracking the puzzle of elastic solids’ toughness
Rubbery materials prove tougher than theory predicts because cracks trying to penetrate those stretchy materials grow blunt at their tips.
- Materials Science
Bone Fix: New material responds to growing tissue
A new scaffolding material stimulates bone regeneration.
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Genetic Clue to Aging? Mutation causes early-aging syndrome
A gene defect that causes accelerated aging may provide insight into normal aging.
- Earth
Feel the Heat: Rain forests may slow their growth in warmer world
During a long-term research project in a Central American rain forest, mature trees grew more slowly in warm years than they did in cooler ones.
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Fig-Wasp Upset: Classic partnership isn’t so tidy after all
Genetic analysis suggests that a textbook example of a tight buddy system in nature—fig species that supposedly each have their own pollinating wasp species—may need to be rewritten.
- Math
Spheres in Disguise: Solid proof offered for famous conjecture
A Russian mathematician has proposed a proof of the Poincaré conjecture, a question about the shapes of three-dimensional spaces.
- Health & Medicine
Teen taters, too
The epidemic of adolescent obesity may owe more to a paucity of exercise than to a growing intake of calories.
