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I found your two articles on vitamin D very interesting. My question now is whether the rays received in a tanning bed can cause the skin to manufacture vitamin D. Wendy WadeKalamazoo, Mich. Ultraviolet–B radiation triggers the skin to produce vitamin D, whether those rays come from the sun or a lamp. However, not all […]
- Health & Medicine
Vitamin D: What’s Enough?
Most researchers studying vitamin D agree that many people would benefit from more of the vitamin, but they haven't yet decided just how much.
- Math
Randomness, Risk, and Financial Markets
A novel measure of disorder in a sequence of numbers can provide insights into financial markets.
- Humans
From the October 6, 1934, issue
Glass models of rotifers, anthrax as a threat among agricultural workers, and cosmic-ray studies in the stratosphere.
- Earth
Eye on Mount St. Helens
Keep an eye on the ongoing volcanic activity at Mount St. Helens in the state of Washington. Images taken by the Johnston Ridge Observatory’s VolcanoCam, at an elevation of about 4,500 feet, are updated roughly every 5 minutes. They’re snapped from a distance of about 5 miles from the volcano, looking approximately south-southeast across the […]
- Humans
Scrubbing Down: Free soap, hygiene tips cut kids’ illnesses
In urban slums, enhancing family hygiene can prevent about half of childhood diarrhea and respiratory illnesses, including pneumonia, even among infants too young to wash themselves.
- Anthropology
Evolution’s Buggy Ride: Lice leap boldly into human-origins fray
A controversial genetic analysis of lice raises the possibility that some type of physical contact occurred between ancient humans and Homo erectus, probably in eastern Asia between 50,000 and 25,000 years ago.
- Humans
Nobel prizes: The sweet smell of success
Nobel prizes in the sciences went to research on olfactory genes, subatomic particles, and the molecular kiss of death.
- Animals
Separate Vacations: Birds winter apart but return in sync
Mated pairs of black-tailed godwits may fly off to winter refuges a thousand kilometers apart but can still arrive back at their breeding site the next spring within a few days of each other.
- Tech
Dawn of the commercial space age
On Oct. 4, a privately funded, piloted craft called SpaceShipOne reached a height of 378,000 feet (115.1 kilometers), breaking a world altitude record for rocket-powered planes and claiming the $10 million Ansari X prize.
- Astronomy
Planet Signs? Sifting a dusty disk
Infrared spectra of a disk of debris surrounding the young star Beta Pictoris reveals three distinct bands of dust, suggesting the location of a possible planet flanked by belts of asteroids or comets.
- Health & Medicine
Carotid Overhaul: Stents and surgery go neck and neck
Mesh cylinders called stents work as well as or slightly better than surgery in opening blocked carotid arteries in high-risk patients.
