Uncategorized
- Animals
Living Fossil: DNA puts rodent in family that’s not extinct after all
The Laotian rock rat, which is very much alive, belongs to a rodent family that supposedly vanished 11 million years ago.
- Health & Medicine
Inherited Burden? Early menarche in moms tied to obesity in kids
Women who reach puberty at an early age are more likely to have children who are overweight.
- Planetary Science
In the Zone: Extrasolar planet with the potential for life
Astronomers this week announced that they had found Earth's closest known analog outside the solar system, an object with an average temperature that may allow water to be liquid on its surface.
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19826
No mention was made in this article of the possibility that, being so close to its star and having a 13-day orbital period, the planet would keep the same surface to the star. Having one side baked by unrelenting sunlight and the other side frozen would leave only a narrow ring between eternal day and […]
- Physics
Putting Einstein to the test
A NASA mission has found new evidence for Einstein's theory of gravity, but its final results have been delayed by unexpected problems.
- Physics
Fermilab could beat CERN to the punch
A new particle accelerator starting up next year in Switzerland should finally discover the origin of mass, unless an older U.S. machine does it first.
- Health & Medicine
No heart risk from hormones taken near menopause
Contrary to some earlier indications, hormone replacement therapy might not impart heart risks to women who take it during their 50s.
- Physics
Liquid origami
A French team has created the first mini-origami figures that fold themselves around droplets of water.
- Earth
Dry winters heat European summers
When southern Europe receives scant rainfall in the winter, the whole continent tends to bake the following summer.
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Uncommon cancer gets start in muscle cells
Synovial sarcoma, a cancer thought to arise from joint tissue, actually forms in nascent muscle cells, a mouse study shows.
- Animals
Killer mice hit seabird chicks
A surveillance video shows a worrisome sight: house mice nibbling to death rare seabird chicks on a remote island breeding colony.
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19825
The NASA researchers baffled in this article by the hexagonal shape in Saturn’s soupy atmosphere at its northern pole should read “As waters part, polygons appear” (SN: 6/3/06, p. 348). It is worth investigating whether there is a similar phenomenon—I still suspect some sort of standing sine wave effect—at work in both cases. Ellery FrahmMinneapolis, […]
