Uncategorized
- Humans
Network analysis predicts drug side effects
A computer technique can foresee adverse events before medications are widely prescribed.
- Life
Drugs activate dormant gene
A compound that blocks DNA unwinding can spur production of a critical brain protein in mice, leading to hope for a therapy for Angelman syndrome.
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- Space
First Earth-sized planets netted
The Kepler space telescope gets one step closer to its mission of discovering habitable worlds by finding two orbs of terrestrial proportions orbiting a distant sunlike star.
- Humans
Fewer fires in Africa these days
How flames spread, not how frequently people start them, controls burning on the continent.
- Life
BPA sends false signals to female hearts
The ingredient of some plastics and food packaging can interfere with cardiac rhythm at surprisingly low concentrations.
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2011 Science News of the Year: Atom & Cosmos
Not so fast, neutrinos News of particles zipping along faster than light (SN: 10/22/11, p. 18) was met with universal skepticism — including from the physicists in Italy who reported the results. But the Gran Sasso National Laboratory’s OPERA team hasn’t found any source of error that could explain how the neutrinos appeared to shave […]
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2011 Science News of the Year: Nutrition
Howard Oates/Istockphoto The value of vitamin D The simmering debate over vitamin D came to a boil as the scientific organization representing hormone experts embraced daily recommendations for the vitamin that far exceed those put forward in late 2010 by a U.S. Institute of Medicine panel. The Endocrine Society asserted in July that people need […]
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2011 Science News of the Year: Molecules
Molecular muscle does the job Chemists often wish they could reach into a test tube and physically force a chemical reaction — and now they’ve come pretty darn close. In a feat of molecular arm-twisting, researchers attached polymer chains to an extremely stable ring-shaped molecule and tore it in two (SN Online: 9/15/11). The new […]
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2011 Science News of the Year: Environment
Courtesy of Christopher Arp/USGS Arctic warming signs Climatologists pointing to the Arctic as the leading barometer of global change have plenty of new evidence that wholesale warming is under way. Observational data indicate that the region’s air, soils and water have warmed substantially since 2006, suggesting that the climate has established a “new normal” (SN […]
