Uncategorized
- Health & Medicine
A problem at hand for catchers
A young professional baseball catcher, who may receive more than 100 pitches per game thrown at more than 90 miles per hour, may be virtually certain to develop circulatory abnormalities in his catching hand.
By Ben Harder - Humans
Letters from the July 23, 2005, issue of Science News
Clearly a problem? “Built for Blurs: Jellyfish have great eyes that can’t focus” (SN: 5/14/05, p. 307) states that “the resulting blurred view is good enough for spotting large objects such as mangrove roots.” It seems to me that the article is missing the crucial biological question presented by these eyes. My understanding is that […]
By Science News - Agriculture
Soy-protein quality versus quantity
New tests show that as the protein yields of soybeans rise, the growth-enhancing quality of that protein as a food or feed decreases.
By Janet Raloff - Anthropology
People fired up Aussie extinctions
Early Australian settlers may have altered the continent's landscape around 50,000 years ago, leading to the extinction of many animal species.
By Bruce Bower - Astronomy
Core mystery
Despite new images from the Hubble Space Telescope, the brightest known supernova of the past 400 years remains a puzzle for astronomers.
By Ron Cowen -
19575
I have some problems with this article. The section regarding alpine thistles seems to ignore the huge moisture-collecting effect of aboveground matter, such as dead plant remains, that results from condensation of dew. Experiments need to be done that control for this and for the increased amount of organic matter found at the “mother’s” site […]
By Science News - Plants
Mommy Greenest
Green leafy moms take care of their offspring in ways that go beyond wrapping them in nice, snug seed coats and packing a nutritious lunch for them.
By Susan Milius - Earth
Toxic Surfs
Scientists have discovered not only three new mechanisms by which an alga species in Florida water can poison but also a trio of natural antidotes produced within that same species.
By Janet Raloff - Math
Closing the Gap on Twin Primes
A long-sought proof that there are infinitely many pairs of primes that differ by only 2 may not be far away.
- Earth
Letters from the July 16, 2005, issue of Science News
Muddy, clarified “Muddy Waters” (SN: 5/21/05, p. 328), on the deleterious effect of dams on coastal systems, contains a major conceptual error. It states that “another important cause of the ground sinking is the waning of sediment deposition by the Mississippi River.” But over the past 100 million years, the northern Gulf Coast region has […]
By Science News -
19574
In your article, you describe Einstein’s negative reaction to Newton’s proposition that gravity acts instantaneously on two objects. The notion of simultaneous (if not instantaneous) properties in physics is one of the basic notions of quantum physics. I do not feel that Einstein’s “particle-like” description of light makes him (even “ironically”) “a builder of the […]
By Science News - Physics
Getting Warped
While museum displays such as simulations of warped space-time acquaint visitors with the ideas behind Albert Einstein's scientific discoveries, other galleries of artifacts, letters, and even film footage reveal the multifaceted man that Einstein was.
By Peter Weiss