Uncategorized
- Planetary Science
Survivor: Extrasolar planet escapes stellar attack
An extrasolar planet survived after its aging parent star ballooned into a red giant that almost engulfed it.
- Physics
Alliance of Opposites: Electrons and positrons make new molecule
Positronium, consisting of electrons and their antimatter counterparts, has been made into a molecular form.
- Health & Medicine
Blood vessel growth factor also does housekeeping
A growth factor that promotes blood vessel development also maintains normal blood vessel health, perhaps explaining the vascular side effects of some cancer drugs.
- Astronomy
Bloated planet
A newly discovered exoplanet is the largest and lowest-density such object yet found.
- Chemistry
Nanoparticles multitask
Magnetite nanoparticles have catalytic properties that may be useful in wastewater treatment and biomedical assays.
- Archaeology
Ancient city grew from outside in
A 6,000-year-old city in what's now northeastern Syria developed when initially independent settlements expanded and merged, unlike other nearby cities that grew from a core outward.
- Anthropology
Advantage: Starch
An enhanced ability to digest starch may have given early humans an evolutionary advantage over their ape relatives.
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19883
Your article notes how groups of people may have different numbers of copies of the amylase gene. Is it correct then that individuals have varying numbers of the gene as well? If so, would this explain why some people don’t like meat and become vegetarians and others just need to eat meat? Robert KraseSpringville, Calif. […]
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19882
This article brought to mind the history of pitch through the centuries. In the 17th century, what is now G sharp was an A. Maybe the “perfect” pitch is somewhere else. Stanton AlgerBainbridge Island, Wash. Before the 20th century, the tone that musicians called A ranged widely but was generally between 415 and 432 hertz […]
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Perfect pitch isn’t so perfect in many
Among people with perfect pitch, the most common error seems to be misidentifying G flat as A, the note on which orchestras traditionally tune.
- Astronomy
Major merger
Four galaxies are ramming into each other in one of the biggest cosmic collisions ever recorded.
- Health & Medicine
How platelets help cancer spread
A tumor cell protein influences blood platelets in a way that helps a cancer spread through the body.
