News
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Dark Power: Pigment seems to put radiation to good use
The pigment melanin may enable certain fungi to convert dangerous radiation into usable energy.
- Earth
Fish Free Fall: Hormone leads to population decline
Trace amounts of the synthetic estrogen used in birth control pills can cause a fish population to collapse.
- Health & Medicine
Circadian Fix: Viagra may lessen effects of jet lag
Sildenafil, the male-impotence drug marketed as Viagra, helps laboratory rodents recovery from circadian disruptions similar to jet lag.
- Animals
Virgin Birth: Shark has daughter without a dad
DNA testing of two sharks confirms an instance of reproduction without mating, adding a fifth major vertebrate lineage to those known for occasional virgin births.
- Planetary Science
Violent Past: Young sun withstood a supernova blast
A big bully pummeled the infant solar system, first by blasting it with a massive wind, then by exploding nearby, driving shock waves into the fledgling solar system and irrevocably altering its chemistry.
- Physics
The dance of the electron spins
Physicists have used a novel measuring technique to track the motions of electron spins in a tiny magnet as its polarity flips, with north and south poles changing places.
- Chemistry
Onward, microbes
With a tweak to their genetic codes, bacteria have been coaxed to follow a chemical trail of a researcher's choosing.
- Health & Medicine
Nail-gun injuries shoot up
Nail-gun injuries among do-it-yourself carpenters have tripled since 1991.
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Unintended consequences of cancer therapies
Radiation and chemotherapy can destroy a tumor, but they may also indirectly promote metastasis, the spread of cancerous cells to other organs.
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Synesthesia tied to brain connections
People who see specific colors when looking at particular letters possess an unusually large number of connections in brain areas that influence word and color perception.
- Earth
Southern seas slow their uptake of CO2
In recent decades, the rate at which oceans in the Southern Hemisphere soak up atmospheric carbon dioxide has slowed.
- Anthropology
When female chimps become baby killers
Although long thought to be rare, instances in which female chimps band together to kill other females' infants occur fairly regularly under certain circumstances.
