News
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What’s learning to a grasshopper?
Learning the taste of nutritious food pays off in a boost to fitness, even for a grasshopper.
- Agriculture
Apple pests stand up to antibiotics
Scientists are concerned about new forms of antibiotic resistance cropping up in fire blight—a deadly disease of apple trees.
- Agriculture
Cocoa yields are mushrooming—downward
A mushroom epidemic in Brazilian cacao trees, which has cut the production of cacao by 25 percent in 5 years, may be treatable with another fungus.
- Earth
Plants seen as unpredictable carbon sponge
Changing land-use practices—especially in forests, croplands, and fallow areas—appear to play a far bigger role than anticipated in determining how much carbon gets removed from the air by vegetation.
- Astronomy
Spacecraft sounds out the sun’s hidden half
By detecting sound waves that have traveled through the sun, two physicists have for the first time found a way to view disturbances on the sun's hidden half, providing a glimpse of stormy weather patterns a week to 10 days before they come into view.
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Tree pollination needs male-only rot
A fungus that attacks only the male flowers on the chempedak fruit tree seems to be the edible reward for pollinators—the first fungus discovered to play such a role in pollination.
- Physics
Soft crystal shows off its many new facets
Experiments with a liquid crystal may confirm the 50-year-old prediction that a nearly unlimited number of facets of different orientations can simultaneously decorate a crystal surface.
- Chemistry
Power cells find uses for fossil fuel
A new fuel cell that runs on hydrocarbons such as natural gas, butane, and diesel instead of hydrogen could be an efficient, practical way to generate power without pollution.
- Humans
Message in DNA tops Science Talent Search
A project on encrypting words within a strand of DNA won the top prize at the Intel Science Talent Search.
- Health & Medicine
Olfactory cells aid spine healing in rats
Injections of olfactory ensheathing glial cells from the brain help severed spinal cords heal in rats.
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Good Readers May Get Perceptual Lift
The ability to hear and see rapidly changing stimuli may underlie reading skills, raising the possibility of new approaches to reading instruction.
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Alcohol can induce fainting spells
Alcohol imbibed in modest quantities can disrupt the reflex that maintains blood pressure when a person stands up quickly, which may account for why some people faint when they down a few drinks and then stand up.
