Uncategorized
- Math
Mean Median Surprise
Calculations of means and medians lead to surprising sequences of numbers.
- Humans
Letters from the May 28, 2005, issue of Science News
Hunger pangs I was interested to read about factors influencing the “hunger hormone’s”—ghrelin’s—effectiveness (“Still Hungry?” SN: 4/2/05, p. 216). One factor not considered but seemingly very significant is physical activity. I suggest that it is more useful to understand and encourage the positive effects of physical activity on overall well-being than to develop new drugs […]
- Humans
From the May 25, 1935, issue
A yacht's air resistance-reducing mast, plants that absorb poison, and new fossils from Patagonia.
- Physics
Quantum Diaries
What’s it like being a physicist? For the “World Year of Physics” in 2005, more than 30 physicists from around the world are providing occasional glimpses of their lives throughout the year via blog entries, video clips, and photos. Go to: http://interactions.org/quantumdiaries/
- Tech
Fields of Beams: Carbon nanotubes crop up for big-screen TV
Carbon nanotubes serve as the electron emitters that light up the screen of a new experimental, high-definition television display.
- Health & Medicine
Positive Jolt: Electroshock therapy may have side benefit
People with depression have high concentrations of norepinephrine, a brain hormone, but electroshock treatment lowers these levels to the normal range.
- Materials Science
Tissue Tether: Improved conducting plastic could boost nerve-regeneration success
Biomedical engineers aim to repair damaged nerves with a chemically modified conducting polymer that stimulates the growth of nerve cells.
-
19556
There is information that when we imagine things, we activate some of the same brain mechanisms as when we experience them physically. It would be interesting to know whether imagining the scent of a food that one likes “lights up the brain” as actually smelling that food does. Seems like a reasonable description of what […]
-
Mapping Aroma: Smells light up distinct brain parts
The sense of smell may have its own brain atlas.
- Planetary Science
Roaming Giants: Did migrating planets shape the solar system?
New simulations suggest that the solar system's four biggest planets were once bunched together, setting up a planetary bowling game that rapidly and violently rearranged the structure of the outer solar system and tossed chunks of debris inward.
-
19555
Maybe there was a belch of hydrogen sulfide involved in the Permian extinctions. However, did it leave some geological trace, as did the vast Siberian outpourings of magma, both on land and in the sea, over the course of a million years during the period? Stan SkirvinScottsdale, Ariz. The ocean venting proposed by Lee Kump’s […]
- Earth
Last Gasp: Toxic gas could explain great extinction
Sudden venting of hydrogen sulfide from the deep sea could have caused the largest extinction in Earth's history by poisoning land animals and destroying atmospheric ozone that protects Earth from ultraviolet light.
