Uncategorized
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Microbes on the Air
The MicrobeWorld Web site, produced by the American Society for Microbiology, offers access to daily 90-second news capsules that highlight the vital role that microbes play in our lives. These snippets, created for broadcast on radio stations, are now available as downloadable podcasts. The Web site provides instructions for subscribing to the podcasts for automatic […]
- Tech
Stepping Lightly: New view of how human gaits conserve energy
Using a simple mathematical model, scientists may have pinpointed the key aspects of human locomotion that make ordinary walking and running the most energy-efficient ways for people to get around on foot.
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19592
The pendular running gait described in this article as one of the most efficient bipedal gaits looks remarkably like the way eyewitnesses claim Bigfoot creatures move. In a Bigfoot hoax, one might use a gait that is unhuman but energy efficient, as the costume would be rather heavy. On the other hand, since such a […]
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Forever Young: Digging for the roots of stem cells
Three proteins have been shown to function as master regulators that shut off differentiation and enable stem cells to retain their capacity to develop into any type of cell.
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Noises On, Language Off: Speech impairment linked to unsound perception
A language disorder that affects a substantial number of elementary school children arises from a difficulty in picking out basic elements of speech, such as consonants, from streams of sound.
- Health & Medicine
Head-to-Head Comparison: Coils top clips in brain-aneurysm treatment
Tiny platinum coils inserted into a ruptured brain aneurysm to seal off the bleeding appear safer in the long run for some patients than traditional brain surgery does.
- Plants
Day-Glo Flowers: Some bright blooms naturally fluoresce
Some common flowers fluoresce but the glow most likely has little effect on pollinators.
- Chemistry
Greener Nylon: One-pot recipe could eliminate industrial leftovers
Researchers have devised a one-step process for making the primary ingredient of nylon.
- Astronomy
Farthest Bang: A burst that goes the distance
The most-distant gamma-ray burst ever found hails from 900 million years after the birth of the universe, around the time when stars and galaxies first flooded the universe with light.
- Humans
Letters from the September 17, 2005, issue of Science News
Just Feynman A lot of people ask how someone like Richard Feynman, who played the bongo drums, loved practical jokes, and was an amateur safecracker and a bon vivant, could also win a Nobel Prize in Physics (“Dr. Feynman’s Doodles: How one scientist’s simple sketches transformed physics,” SN: 7/16/05, p. 40). Actually, all of Feynman’s […]
- Chemistry
How hot was it?
Scientists have created heat-sensing polymers that indicate exposure to high temperatures by changing color under ultraviolet light.
- Chemistry
Novel reaction produces hydrogen
Chemists have found a new way to produce hydrogen using only water, an organic liquid, and a metal catalyst.
