News
- Math
Super Bowls and stock markets
The predictive power of the Super Bowl "theory," which involves an apparent correlation between stock market performance and the results of the National Football League championship game, has declined precipitously in recent years.
- Math
Pursuing punctured polyhedra
A mathematician has proved that it's possible to construct a mathematical shape made up of flat faces and straight edges in which every face has a "hole" where the vertex of one constituent polyhedron pokes into the face of another.
- Health & Medicine
New tests may catch bicyclers on dope
Two new tests, on blood and urine, detect the presence of synthetic erythropoietin, a drug that boosts red blood cell counts and enhances stamina.
- Health & Medicine
Did colonization spread ulcers?
A comparison of strains of Helicobacter pylori, the bacterium that causes ulcers, suggests that colonists brought it to the New World.
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Biodiversity may lessen Lyme disease
A survey of Lyme disease rates suggests that a greater diversity of small mammals and lizards may help keep the rates down.
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Old lemming puzzle gets new answer
A novel analysis suggests food supply variations as the answer to the decades-old puzzle of what makes lemming populations boom and bust.
- Physics
Stretched matter goes to unusual extremes
Researchers have discovered that several unusual forms of matter with extremely high or low densities can expand laterally in one direction and contract in another when extended.
- Animals
Single singing male toad seeks same
Male spadefoot toads of the Spea multiplicata species evaluate male competitors by the same criterion females use.
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Mice have a sharp nose for pheromones
Mice can detect pheromones with great sensitivity and in a way that's distinct from that of the main olfactory system.
- Astronomy
Black holes and galaxies may grow up together
Astronomers have new and, for the first time, quantitative evidence that bigger black holes reside at the centers of bigger galaxies.
- Archaeology
Neandertals’ diet put meat in their bones
Chemical analyses of Neandertals' bones portray these ancient Europeans as skillful hunters and avid meat eaters, countering a theory that they mainly scavenged scraps of meat from abandoned carcasses.
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Brain’s Moving Experience: Motion illusion yields a neural surprise
A brain-imaging study indicates that the primary motor cortex, the control center for issuing motor commands, also aids in the perception of the body's position and planning for upcoming movements.
