News
- Animals
Spider blood fluoresces
Among spiders, fluorescence under ultraviolet light seems to be a widespread trait.
- Earth
Lake Superior is warming faster than its local climate
In recent decades, the waters of Lake Superior have warmed significantly faster than have air temperatures at nearby sites onshore, a trend caused in part by a long-term decrease in the lake's winter ice cover.
- Anthropology
Kin play limited role in chimp cooperation
Male chimps collaborate in a variety of ways and, like people, often find partners outside of their immediate families for cooperative ventures.
- Agriculture
Bugged wines
Stinky compounds emitted by ladybugs can impart a foul taste to wines made from grapes on which the insects had been feeding.
- Computing
Lost in transportation
A new algorithm might make online driving directions more accurate.
- Earth
Ash Detector: Laser device could protect aircraft in flight
Analysis of a volcanic plume that wafted over central Alaska suggests that polarized laser beams can detect airborne ash, which can be a threat to aircraft.
- Health & Medicine
Diabetes from Depression: Older adults face dual risk
Adults 65 and older who report depressive symptoms are 50 to 60 percent more likely to develop diabetes than are their peers.
- Earth
Pregnancy and Pollution: Women living in areas with poor air quality have babies with lower birthweights
Pregnant women exposed even to moderate amounts of several common air pollutants tend to have babies with low birthweights.
-
Sleep on It: Time delay plus slumber equals memory boost
Sleep revs up a person's ability to discern connections among pieces of information encountered in novel situations.
- Animals
Living Fossil: DNA puts rodent in family that’s not extinct after all
The Laotian rock rat, which is very much alive, belongs to a rodent family that supposedly vanished 11 million years ago.
- Health & Medicine
Inherited Burden? Early menarche in moms tied to obesity in kids
Women who reach puberty at an early age are more likely to have children who are overweight.
- Planetary Science
In the Zone: Extrasolar planet with the potential for life
Astronomers this week announced that they had found Earth's closest known analog outside the solar system, an object with an average temperature that may allow water to be liquid on its surface.
