Uncategorized
- Health & Medicine
Motor Ways: Gene mutation impairs muscle coordination
Scientists have identified a gene mutation that appears to cause the motor impairment that occurs in a rare disorder called Joubert syndrome.
- Animals
Pirates of the Amphibian: Males fertilize eggs of another guy’s gal
For the first time among amphibians, scientists have found frogs that sneak their sperm onto egg clutches left by another mating pair.
- Health & Medicine
Tapping an Unlikely Source: Scientists use mouth membrane to construct corneal-surface transplants
Using membranes taken from the inside of the mouth, researchers have fashioned transplants that act as replacement outer layers for corneas in people with damaged vision.
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Flies ‘R’ Us: Fruit fly cells mimic the mammalian pancreas
A new study suggests that the common fruit fly has cells that function much as those in the human pancreas do.
- Materials Science
Nanotech Goes to New Lengths: Scientists create ultralong carbon nanotubes
In an advance toward making superstrong fibers, chemists have synthesized a 4-centimeter-long carbon nanotube, the longest nanotube reported to date.
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Mothering Malnutrition: Moms’ depression weighs on infants in Pakistan
Maternal depression critically contributes to malnutrition-related health problems among infants in rural Pakistan.
- Astronomy
Sky Lights: Picture might show an extrasolar planet
A faint point of red light may be the first picture ever taken of a planet outside the solar system.
- Humans
Letters from the September 18, 2004, issue of Science News
A Pauling oversight I was surprised to find no mention of Linus Pauling’s theory of anesthesia in “Comfortably Numb” (SN: 7/3/04, p. 8: Comfortably Numb). In 1961, Pauling provided detailed arguments that interactions between anesthetic agents and water, rather than lipids, form hydrate microcrystals in the brain that entrap side chains of proteins and interfere […]
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Staph bacteria are choosy about their iron source
Staphylococcus bacteria prefer to get their iron from heme, the ring-shaped portion of oxygen-carrying proteins such as hemoglobin.
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Nature reduces kids’ signs of attention disorder
Spending leisure time amid greenery rather than in built-up environments appears to improve behavior in children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.
- Plants
A new, slimy method of self-pollination
When all else fails for pollination, a Chinese herb in the ginger family resorts to something botanists say they haven't seen before: a do-it-yourself oil slick.
- Astronomy
Crashing Genesis
Scientists are trying to salvage the fragile samples of the solar wind collected by the Genesis spacecraft, which crashed to Earth on Sept. 8 after its parachutes failed to open.
