Uncategorized
- Math
Theorems in Wheat Fields
It’s no wonder that farmers with fields in the plains surrounding Stonehenge, in southern England, face late-summer mornings with dread. On any given day at the height of the growing season, as many as a dozen farmers are likely to find a field marred by a circle of flattened grain. This close-up of a crop […]
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19257
After reading your article, I am sure others must have also wondered if the “Tunguska meteor” that struck in Siberia in June 1908 might have been a mirror meteor. The mirror-asteroid strike described in the article sounds very much like descriptions of the event: tremendous energy and no impact crater. If a mirror object were […]
- Physics
Through the Looking Glass
A proposed universe of unseen material, where every ordinary particle has a shadowy counterpart, could explain several conundrums in cosmology.
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- Animals
Strange Y chromosome makes supermom mice
An otherwise rare system of sex determination has evolved independently at least six times in one genus of South American mice.
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Genetic variation sways risk of diabetes
A gene carried by up to 85 percent of the people in the world increases susceptibility to diabetes by about 25 percent.
- Health & Medicine
Can poliovirus fix spinal cord damage?
Scientists have devised a version of the poliovirus that can deliver genes to motor neurons without harming them, a step toward a gene therapy that reawakens idle neurons in people with spinal cord damage.
- Paleontology
Teeth tell tale of warm-blooded dinosaurs
Evidence locked within the fossil teeth of some dinosaurs may help bolster the view that some of the animals were, at least to some degree, warm-blooded.
- Materials Science
Cathedral has weathered London’s acid rain
A decrease in acid rain seems to be responsible for newly reported reduced deterioration rates of St. Paul's Cathedral in London.
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19329
I was surprised to read about the extensive research in Puerto Rico that has found a link between phthalates in plastics and premature breast development in young girls. I was under the impression that a completely different culprit, growth hormones in chickens, was established many years ago. The article indicates that the San Juan researchers […]
- Earth
Girls may face risks from phthalates
The high incidence of premature breast development in Puerto Rican girls has been linked with phthalates, a family of ubiquitous pollutants found in plastics, lubricants, and solvents.
- Astronomy
Telescope unveils a stellar deception
A heavenly masquerade may shed light on the nature of astrophysical jets—the beams of material spewed by a wide variety of celestial objects.
