News
- Animals
Magnetic field tells nightingales to binge
Young birds that have never migrated before may take a cue from the magnetic field to fatten up before trying to fly over the Sahara.
- Health & Medicine
Even high-normal blood pressure is too high
Blood pressure at the high end of what is defined as the normal range is closer to "high" than to "normal" in terms of risk of associated heart disease.
- Astronomy
X-ray study: Energy from a black hole?
Astronomers claim that for the first time, they've observed energy extracted from a black hole, or more precisely, from the tornadolike swirl of surrounding space that a spinning black hole drags along with it.
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Disabilities develop as family affair
A long-term study uncovered family factors that influence the mental development of children with biologically based disabilities, as well as evidence of increasing stress among parents as their kids with disabilities approach adolescence.
- Health & Medicine
Puffer Fish Genomes Swim into View
The tightly packed genomes of two puffer fish species have been deciphered.
- Earth
How polluted is a preschooler’s world?
Preliminary data from a new study show that children may ingest traces of atrazine, a common herbicide, in their drinking water.
- Earth
Kitchen tap may offer drugs and more
Excreted drugs and household chemicals are making their way through community waste-treatment and drinking-water plants.
- Earth
Composting cuts manure’s toxic legacy
Composting manure reduces its testosterone and estrogen concentrations, limiting the runoff of these hormones, which can harm wildlife.
- Tech
Curve on golf club sends ball straight
Although the curved faces of golf clubs called drivers blast balls sideways, their convex design works just right to compensate for other effects tending to make balls veer off the fairway, new calculations show.
- Tech
Cooling film tempers tiny hot spots
Shattering a 40-year-old performance limit, a new layered, semiconductor material promises to spur wider use of so-called thermoelectric devices that cool or heat electrically and can convert heat to electric power.
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Moms’ touch gives kids social push
Premature babies frequently touched in soothing ways by their mothers exhibited much better social and emotional growth as toddlers than did peers who had been exposed to harsh forms of maternal touching.
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Maternal care may leave brain legacy
Rat experiments indicate that mothers' licking and grooming of offspring induces biological changes in female pups that in turn regulate their maternal behavior as adults.
