News
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Robo Receptor: Researchers engineer a brain ion channel to take its cues from light
Scientists have engineered an ion channel in nerve cells to open or close in response to light.
- Ecosystems
Life Underfoot: Microbial biodiversity takes surprising twist
When it comes to numbers of bacterial species, rainforest dirt is virtually a desert, but desert dirt bursts with biodiversity.
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The Fat Track: Signals between cells keep creatures lean
An ancient cellular pathway that determines cells' fates also inhibits fat formation in insects and mammals.
- Health & Medicine
Put Down That Fork: Studies document hazards of obesity
Being overweight or obese in middle age increases a person's risk of heart or kidney problems later in life.
- Animals
Little Professor: Ants rank as first true animal teachers
The best evidence so far of true teaching in a nonhuman animal comes from ants. With video.
- Humans
Faked Finds: Human stem cell work is discredited
South Korean scientist Woo Suk Hwang faked embryonic stem cell findings, say investigators from Seoul National University.
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Masters of Disaster: Survey taps resilience of post-9/11 New York
Telephone interviews with more than 2,700 people living in and around New York City yielded evidence of widespread psychological resilience during the 6 months after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.
- Earth
Greenhouse Plants? Vegetation may produce methane
Lab tests suggest that a wide variety of plants may routinely do something that scientists previously thought impossible; produce methane in significant quantities in an oxygenated environment.
- Health & Medicine
Musical therapy for sounder sleeping
Regularly playing a droning wind instrument native to Australia significantly reduced snoring and sleep problems, Swiss researchers found.
- Tech
Transistors sprout inner forests
By combining nanowires and conventional transistor structures, researchers are creating novel transistors with improved performance and the potential to be easily manufactured.
- Humans
Fattening fears
Parents' concerns over neighborhood safety may cause them to keep their children indoors and thereby increase the possibility that the youngsters will become overweight.
- Archaeology
Stone Age Britons pay surprise visit
Estimated to be roughly 700,000 years old, stone tools recently unearthed along England's southeastern coast are the earliest evidence of human ancestors in northern Europe.
