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Health & MedicineEar piercings cause illness, disfigurement
Piercing the upper-ear cartilage under nonsterile conditions can leave a person vulnerable to a Pseudomonas aeruginosa infection, as happened in Oregon in 2000.
By Nathan Seppa -
AnimalsRoad rage keeps ants moving smoothly
Streams of ants manage to avoid traffic gridlock by a bit of strategic pushing and shoving.
By Susan Milius -
Health & MedicineHeart patients gain from steep cholesterol drop
Heart patients can lessen their risk of a heart attack and increase their odds of survival by aggressively reducing harmful low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol in their blood.
By Nathan Seppa -
PhysicsComplexity by way of simplicity
Researchers have demonstrated a new way to simplify some intricate patterns whose extreme complexity has convinced theoretical physicist Stephen Wolfram that traditional science can't explain many important natural phenomena.
By Peter Weiss -
AnthropologyGrannies give gift of longer lives
Data from two 18th- and 19th-century farming communities supports the theory that child care assistance from grandmothers has contributed to the evolution of extended human longevity.
By Bruce Bower -
Health & MedicineDrug for migraines helps some patients
An experimental drug that slows blood flow in the brain knocks out migraine headaches in some people.
By Nathan Seppa -
AnimalsHornbills know which monkey calls to heed
Hornbills can tell the difference between two kinds of alarm calls given by monkeys.
By Susan Milius -
Planetary ScienceRevisiting a forgotten planet
Engineers are readying a NASA spacecraft for a May 11 launch to Mercury, one of the least-explored planets in the solar system.
By Ron Cowen -
19393
The word love needs to be more carefully defined in the study described in this article. Love may also mean finding the economic resources to give a child a better future. Wolf’s description of Taiwanese mothers giving their children away when “socially acceptable alternatives” were available is reminiscent of our society’s advice to young unwed […]
By Science News -
Mother and Child Disunion
Data on extensive giveaways of daughters by their mothers in northern Taiwan a century ago may challenge influential theories of innate maternal sentiments.
By Bruce Bower -
The Bad Seed
Researchers are racing to identify tumor-forming stem cells in skin, lung, pancreatic, and many other cancers.
By John Travis -
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Your article describes how the male bean weevil’s spiked reproductive part damages the female’s reproductive tract to reduce the chance that she will mate with other males. Could this also explain the barbs on the organ of the domesticated tom cat? I have read that the pain of copulation induces the female’s ovulation, but I […]
By Science News