Uncategorized
- Health & Medicine
Salmonella seeks sweets
A sugarlike substance in the roots of lettuce may attract food-poisoning bacteria.
- Earth
Groundwater use adds CO2 to the air
Pumping out groundwater for crop irrigation or industrial purposes releases planet-warming carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
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19899
Soil water picks up carbon dioxide generated when soil organic matter decomposes, and this then escapes to the atmosphere. This study should give pause to those who insist that man-made materials be biodegradable. When biodegradable materials decompose they add CO2 back into the atmosphere more quickly than otherwise. Nonbiodegradable materials serve to keep organic carbon […]
- Health & Medicine
Earache microbe shows resistance
A strain of bacterium that causes middle ear infection is resistant to all antibiotics currently approved for the ailment.
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19898
You refer to Lonesome George, the Galápagos tortoise, as “misanthropic”—meaning a hater of people. He certainly has good reason to dislike humans, but I wonder how the investigators could tell. Or did you mean that George doesn’t like other tortoises, and is therefore antisocial? Roman KozakOmaha, Neb. Lonesome George’s lack of gregariousness extends across species: […]
- Ecosystems
Tortoise Genes and Island Beings
Geneticists and conservation biologists are joining forces to untangle the evolutionary history of giant Galápagos tortoises and to safeguard the animals' future.
- Health & Medicine
Mother Knows All
Fragments of a fetus' genetic material that leak into a pregnant woman's bloodstream reveal details of early fetal development.
- Tech
Hooking up
Cleverly designed molecules can self-assemble into networks and stay robustly connected.
- Humans
Letters from the November 10, 2007, issue of Science News
Thinking it through Bjorn Merker says that “the tacit consensus concerning the cerebral cortex as the ‘organ of consciousness’ … may in fact be seriously in error” (“Consciousness in the Raw,” SN: 9/15/07, p. 170). But the real tacit consensus is that the cerebral cortex is the organ of conceptual consciousness, of thinking and reasoning, […]
- Math
Numbers, by Any Other Name
Most Westerners have come to represent numbers with Hindu-Arabic characters. But many cultures don’t—and historically, a whole range of alternatives have been used. View many at this site, which was developed by Archimedes’ Laboratory, a group that specializes in creating puzzles and brain teasers. Go to: http://www.archimedes-lab.org/numeral.html
- Humans
From the October 30, 1937, issue
A photographer captures the coming of winter, motion pictures show how cancer spreads through the blood, and engineers get new oil from old Pennsylvania wells.
- Health & Medicine
Plugging Leaks: Manipulating receptors may impede sepsis
Manipulation of signaling proteins on blood vessels may help combat sepsis, an often fatal condition.
