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  1. Health & Medicine

    Curry Power

    A component of the spice turmeric, the color-giving ingredient in yellow curries, may help prevent and possibly treat Alzheimer's disease.

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  2. 19881

    Bjorn Merker says that “the tacit consensus concerning the cerebral cortex as the ‘organ of consciousness’ … may in fact be seriously in error.” But the real tacit consensus is that the cerebral cortex is the organ of conceptual consciousness, of thinking and reasoning, and that is not challenged by studies that identify the brain […]

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  3. Consciousness in the Raw

    Observations of children born without most of the brain's outer layer, or cortex, and evidence from animal studies suggest that a basic form of consciousness may arise from the brain stem alone.

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  4. Humans

    Letters from the September 15, 2007, issue of Science News

    Talk talk talk “Hidden Smarts: Abstract thought trumps IQ scores in autism” (SN: 7/7/07, p. 4) didn’t mention that traditional IQ tests are in one sense “language” tests. The Ravens test doesn’t involve language processing in a typical manner. A person with a language disorder, as an autistic person is assumed to be, would do […]

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  5. Math

    Separate Is Never Equal

    Economic forces alone can explain why social segregation leads to inequalities in wealth and achievement.

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  6. Math

    May the Best Team Win

    In sports leagues and playoffs, the strongest teams often don't triumph, but redesigning the schedule of games can improve their chances.

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  7. Humans

    From the September 4, 1937, issue

    Growling grizzlies star at Yellowstone, radioactive dating puts Earth's age at less than 3 billion years, and a suggestion that overanxious parents can turn their children into stutterers.

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  8. Earth

    How Green Are Your Travels?

    This website offers a rough gauge of the carbon-dioxide emissions associated with flying around the country. Just plug in a starting point and destination and it gives you a round-trip estimate of the greenhouse-gas “footprint” of your travel. The goal is to encourage visitors to buy carbon-offsets to cover the greenhouse-gas cost of their treks. […]

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  9. Earth

    Laser printers can dirty the air

    Some laser printers emit substantial amounts of potentially hazardous nanoscale particles.

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  10. Health & Medicine

    Aura origins show the way in epilepsy surgery

    Epilepsy patients who experience multiple auras before a seizure, usually considered poor candidates for corrective brain surgery, might benefit from by a new brain scan procedure.

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  11. Orangutans hand it to researchers

    Orangutans try to communicate by gesturing when they think they're being misunderstood, much as people do when playing charades.

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  12. 19880

    My cat has been doing for years what scientists at the University of St. Andrews reported of orangutans: motioning for healthy portions of their favorite foods. Except that four tins of cat food later, my cat is still motioning “Not that kind, wrong flavor.” Sally YoungNewport News, Va.

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