News
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Animals
Babbling Bats: Do pups talk baby talk as human infants do?
Young sac-winged bats make long strings of adultlike noises and could be the first animals besides some primates and birds that babble when they're babies.
By Susan Milius -
Earth
Breaking Crust: Sonar finds new kind of deep-sea volcano
Undersea explorations more than 600 kilometers east of Japan have discovered evidence of a previously unknown type of volcanism.
By Sid Perkins -
Astronomy
Double disks
Astronomers have confirmed that the nearby star Beta Pictoris has two disks of dust orbiting it, each of which is generated by debris likely to be left over from planet formation.
By Ron Cowen -
Tech
Litmus test gets tiny
When zapped by a laser, new, light-sensitive nanobaubles could provide a reading of pH, or how acidic or basic a solution is, even from deep inside living cells.
By Peter Weiss -
Health & Medicine
Obesity correlates with psychiatric disorders
Obese adults are 25 percent more likely than normal-weight adults to develop one of four mood or anxiety disorders.
By Eric Jaffe -
Paleontology
Rarity of fossils of young tyrannosaurs explained
Paleontologists have unearthed only a few juvenile tyrannosaurs, and a new study suggests why: A large percentage of these meat-eating dinosaurs, unlike many other creatures, survived into adulthood.
By Sid Perkins -
Health & Medicine
Device spots sponges left behind
A device that uses radiofrequency identification can detect tagged sponges left in patients undergoing surgery.
By Nathan Seppa -
Chemistry
Old drug, new use
By screening a library of more than 2,000 existing drugs, researchers have identified an antihistamine that shows activity against malaria.
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Bullying leaves mark on kids’ psyches
Being victimized by bullies at school between ages 5 and 7 promotes a unique set of behavioral and emotional problems in children, regardless of any such problems that they had before entering school.
By Bruce Bower -
Health & Medicine
Male circumcision could avert millions of HIV infections
Mass circumcision of boys and men in sub-Saharan Africa could avert 2.7 million new cases of HIV infection over the next decade.
By Nathan Seppa -
Astronomy
Recurrent Eruption: Explosive stellar saga
Six thermonuclear explosions have ripped off the outer layers of a dense, nearby star in the past 108 years.
By Ron Cowen -
Health & Medicine
Big Headache: Auras may add risk to migraines
Women who experience migraines that are preceded by sensory irregularities face a heightened risk of heart attack and stroke.
By Nathan Seppa