Uncategorized
- Earth
Air held oxygen early on
Chemical analyses of South African sediments suggest that oxygen was present in small quantities about 2.32 billion years ago, which is at least 100 million years earlier than previously thought.
- Earth
Scooting on a Wet Bottom: Some undersea landslides ride a nearly frictionless slick of water
New computer simulations suggest that hydroplaning may be responsible for the unexpectedly large distances traversed by some undersea avalanches.
- Health & Medicine
Conduit to the Brain: Particles enter the nervous system via the nose
Tiny airborne particles can apparently infiltrate the brain by shimmying up the nerve that governs smell.
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19373
Once again, we see evidence that supports what we knew all along. As my mother told me growing up, “Just sleep on it.” David VarnerPortland, Ore.
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Sleeper Effects: Slumber may fortify memory, stir insight
In two separate studies, researchers found that a specific sleep stage may amplify recent memories and that sleep can inspire problem-solving insights.
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Pushing Cancer over the Edge: Compounds trigger tumor-cell suicide
Compounds that free cancer cells to commit suicide slow tumor growth.
- Plants
Dawn of the Y: Papaya—Glimpse of early sex chromosome
Genetic mappers say that the papaya plant has a rudimentary Y chromosome, the youngest one in evolutionary terms yet found, offering a glimpse of the evolution of sex chromosomes.
- Planetary Science
Spirit Gets Its Wheels Dirty: Mars rover begins scientific work
Spirit, the rover that landed on Mars on Jan. 3, last week began studying the rocks and soil at its landing site.
- Health & Medicine
Cluster Buster: Might a simple sugar derail Huntington’s?
A study in mice with a disease resembling Huntington's shows that a simple sugar impedes the protein aggregation that kills brain cells.
- Physics
Wet ‘n’ Wild
Scientists have tracked the weirdness of water to microscopic arrangements of molecules and perhaps to the existence of a second, low-temperature form of the familiar substance.
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19372
John Harris is quoted as saying that the absence of opossums is a “curious exception” to the list of current mammals of the Los Angeles Basin preserved in the La Brea tar pits. But the presence of opossums on the West Coast is well documented to be very recent. All current California opossums derive entirely […]
- Paleontology
L.A.’s Oldest Tourist Trap
Modern excavations at the La Brea tar pits are revealing a wealth of information about local food chains during recent ice ages, as well as details about what happened to trapped animals in their final hours.
