Uncategorized
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Virtual Insects
Created by entomologist Alexei Sharov of Virginia Tech, this Web site provides dramatic, close-up, three-dimensional views of various insects, as presented in animated images or using the Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML). Virtual insects on display include the ant, stag beetle, water strider, and termite. Requires a QuickTime plug-in (movies) or a VRML plug-in (virtual […]
- Earth
What’s Gotten into Everybody? Survey of bodily contaminants finds encouraging declines and new exposures
The U.S. population's exposure to lead, secondhand smoke, and certain other harmful chemicals has trended downward, but some newly measured contaminants are present in a sizable fraction of the nation's residents, according to an updated report.
- Health & Medicine
Echinacea Disappoints: There’s still no cure for the common cold
The folk remedy echinacea shows no benefit against the common cold.
- Planetary Science
Cassini eyes youthful-looking Saturnian moon
On July 14, the Cassini spacecraft came within 175 kilometers of the south polar region of Saturn's bright, tiny moon Enceladus, revealing a tortured terrain of faults, folds, and ridges.
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Fickle Finger’s Funny Feel: Digit illusion modifies touch perception
The brain rapidly adjusts its internal map of the body's skin surface, according to a new study of people who underwent laboratory procedures that induced illusions of finger growth or shrinkage.
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Boning Up: Tissue for grafts grown inside the body
Scientists have discovered a new way to stimulate one part of an animal's body to grow extra bone tissue that can be transplanted elsewhere.
- Paleontology
Young and Helpless: Fossils suggest that dinosaur parents cared
Skeletal remains found in the fossilized eggs of an early dinosaur hint that adults of the species may have cared for their hatchlings.
- Animals
Wing Ding: Bird rubs feathers for cricketlike song
Scientists say that they have found the first vertebrate to make its courtship music in the same way as a cricket does.
- Physics
Glints from Inner Space: Sensing Earth’s hidden radioactivity
Physicists have observed signatures of radioactivity deep within Earth, enabling measurement of planet-wide thorium and uranium quantities.
- Humans
Letters from the July 30, 2005, issue of Science News
Led astray The illustration of the solar system in “Roaming Giants: Did migrating planets shape the solar system?” (SN: 5/28/05, p. 340) does not represent the current orbit of the planets. Rather, it must be a frame from the computer simulation referred to in the article. William MeadowsDripping Springs, Texas Indeed, the image reflects the […]
- Astronomy
Planet potential
Observations with the Submillimeter Array on Hawaii's Mauna Kea reveal that, despite their bombardment by a stellar bully, the disks in Orion have enough material to form planets.
- Physics
Why isn’t the sky violet, Daddy?
A new analysis of why the sky looks blue reveals that the reason may be the combined effects of the atmosphere and of our eyes' color-sensing apparatus.
