Uncategorized
- Ecosystems
Will Climate Change Depose Monarchs? Model predicts too-wet winter refuges
A computer analysis suggests that eastern monarch butterflies may not be able to tolerate the increasingly moist climate in Mexico, their current wintering site.
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This article, implying the demise of the unique Mexico-Canada migration, seems too pessimistic. Monarchs have shown a great degree of adaptability. There are monarchs of the western United States, resident populations in Hawaii and on Caribbean islands, and a migrating population in Australia. I am betting that even if the weather forecast for 2050 is […]
- Earth
Not Just Neurotoxic: Pesticide chlorpyrifos affects heart and liver cells
A pesticide known to be toxic to the brain may also have subtle effects on heart and liver tissues of animals exposed to this substance during early development.
- Tech
Plastic Memories: Polymer materials store data permanently
Researchers have fabricated a memory device that stores data permanently in electrically-conducting polymers.
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Whiffs of Perception: Sniffing activates the mind’s nose
People spontaneously sniff while imagining various smells, an act that intensifies odor perception.
- Physics
Humpty-Dumpty Effect: Acoustically, people resemble large eggs
The first measurements of how people intrinsically scatter sound waves indicate that, acoustically, a human body resembles a hard ellipsoid of the same height and girth as the person.
- Paleontology
Northern Extinction: Alaskan horses shrank, then disappeared
Horses that lived in Alaska shrank dramatically in body size before they went extinct at the end of the last ice age.
- Astronomy
Sound of the fury
On Oct. 28, the Saturn-bound Cassini spacecraft recorded the radio wave "sound" of a powerful solar flare as it raced toward Earth.
- Astronomy
Chow Down! Milky Way gobbles its closest known neighbor
A tiny, newly discovered galaxy being shredded by the gravity of the Milky Way is our galaxy's closest known neighbor, residing just 42,000 light-years from the Milky Way's center.
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The good side of a viral infection?
Hepatitis A infections may protect people from allergies and asthma.
- Tech
Laser beam powers flying machine
Caught in a laser's glare on its maiden launch, a lightweight drone with a solar panel demonstrated that continuous flight powered by ground-based lasers is possible.
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Chronicling a war of beetle vs. leaf
A meshing of family trees provides a rare example of an arms race between toxic Bursera plants and the beetles that manage to eat them anyway.
