Uncategorized
- Ecosystems
Spring Forward
Scientists who study biological responses to seasonal and climatic changes have noted that the annual cycles for many organisms are beginning earlier on average, as global temperatures rise.
- Math
Turtle Tracks
One way to describe a geometric figure is in terms of the path generated by a moving point. Instead of defining a square, for example, as a four-sided polygon with equal sides and angles, you can call it the path generated by the following rule: Go straight for a distance s, turn 90 degrees right, […]
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Pass the Genes, Please
Gene swapping muddles the history of microbes.
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19227
The July 22 cover, “Sticker shock,” and the related article say that the powerful forces that arise at the surface of micromachines weren’t expected. Any skilled machinist who has used Johannsen gauge blocks in measuring and checking his work would not be surprised at all. These blocks are stacks of hardened steel rectangles with highly […]
- Tech
The Little Engines That Couldn’t
Tired of grinding their gears, micromachine researchers turn to surface science.
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Sleepers yield memorable brain images
Rapid-eye-movement sleep may help consolidate some newly acquired memories, brain scans suggest.
- Astronomy
Dead stars may masquerade as ingenues
A heavenly deception in which dead stars lie about their ages could throw into disarray theories describing some of the densest objects in the cosmos.
- Health & Medicine
Edible vaccine spawns antibodies to virus
Genetically engineered potatoes can deliver an edible vaccine against Norwalk virus, a common diarrhea-causing pathogen.
- Earth
Greenland’s ice is thinner at the margins
The central portion of Greenland's ice sheet is, on the whole, not getting any thinner, but most margins of the ice sheet are thinning substantially and contributing to rising sea levels.
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E. coli toxin shows its deadly touch
A toxin from a bacterium that causes food poisoning appears to kill cells by interacting with a protein called Bcl-2.
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Sexual orientation linked to handedness
A metanalysis reveals right-handedness is more common among heterosexuals than homosexuals, suggesting a neurobiological basis for sexual orientation.
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19302
I beg to differ with the quote, attributed to Ethan Temeles in this article: “This is the first really unambiguous example of ecology playing a role in the morphological differences between the sexes.” The statement exhibits the annoyingly common practice among zoologists to think and generalize as if only animals (and, even worse, only vertebrates) […]
