Uncategorized
- Humans
Bad Influence: TV, movies linked to adolescent smoking
White adolescents who have frequent exposure to television and R-rated movies are more likely to try smoking than are their peers with less exposure to these media.
- Planetary Science
Saturn’s rings: A panoramic perspective
Sailing high above Saturn's equator, NASA's Cassini spacecraft took the most sweeping views of the planet's icy rings ever recorded.
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Schizophrenia Plus and Minus: Cognitive course nudges patients into workforce
Antipsychotic drugs exert disappointingly modest effects on the quality of life of people with schizophrenia, although a new cognitive-training program shows promise as a way to get these psychiatric patients into the workforce.
- Animals
Mafia Cowbirds: Do they muscle birds that don’t play ball?
A new test offers the best evidence yet that cowbirds retaliate against birds that resist their egg scams.
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19805
A better title for this article might be “Mendelian Cowbirds.” By reducing the number of successful hatches and subsequent offspring of any parent birds that kick the interlopers’ eggs out of their nests, the cowbirds are (unintentionally) reducing the expression of that behavior in the next generation of potential foster families. W. Gregory StewartLos Angeles, […]
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Living Long on Less? Mouse and human cells respond to slim diets
Some animals live longer on reduced-calorie diets, and in a recent experiment people on such diets had many of the cellular changes that those long-lived animals did.
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19804
What were the ages of the people in the study? Henry Dieter WeinschelLas Cruces, N.M. The participants, whose muscle cells showed several more-youthful signs if they ate fewer calories, were 35 to 38 years old. —P. Barry
- Humans
Letters from the March 10, 2007, issue of Science News
Cosmic cling At least on Earth, rock impacts result in charging of the particles (“Rocky Finding: Evidence of extrasolar asteroid belt,” SN: 1/6/07, p. 5). In space, wouldn’t this have a great effect on the motion of the rocks? Stuart HoenigTucson, Ariz. According to researchers, it’s true that the electrostatic charging of space dust and […]
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Body clock affects racing prowess
When it comes to athletic performance, we're all night owls, a new study suggests.
- Archaeology
Spicy finds from before Columbus
Ancient Americans cultivated and ate chili peppers at least 6,100 years ago, setting the stage for the spicy condiment to spread throughout the world after Columbus' voyages to the New World.
- Earth
DNA pinpoints poached ivory tusks
Scientists tracked the origin of an illegal ivory shipment to Zambia by using an improved DNA-analysis technique to study the confiscated tusks.
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19803
To discourage poaching, authorities in Zambia should subdue every elephant they can find, sedate it, harvest the ivory themselves, and sell it for revenue for animal-protection programs. That’s better than dead. Buz CraftWills Point, Texas
