Uncategorized
- Paleontology
Ancestors Go South
A group of new and previously excavated fossils in South Africa represents 4-million-year-old members of the human evolutionary family, according to an analysis of the sediment that covered the finds.
- Animals
Chicks open wide, ultraviolet mouths
The first analysis of what the mouths of begging birds look like in the ultraviolet spectrum reveals a dramatic display that birds can see but people can't.
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19315
The iron-sulfide hypothesis of life’s origin that Michael J. Russell and William Martin propose in this article is attractive because it provides an inorganic cell wall and a matrix with some catalytic capabilities. But even if the Russell-Martin hypothesis is true, it isn’t a comprehensive theory of bioorigins. The cardinal difficulty in the origin of […]
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A Rocky Start
A new origin-of-life theory holds that life began within the confines of iron sulfide rocks surrounding hydrothermal vents at the ocean bottom.
- Earth
Eye of the Tiger
Recent research has upended a 130-year-old, previously unchallenged theory about how the semiprecious stone called tiger's-eye is formed.
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19314
This article addresses how much energy is given up in the viscous processes of a thin sheet of turbulent fluid. The technique used to stir the soap film grabbed my attention. Is it possible that the electromagnetic emissions from the sun influence Earth’s winds in an analogous manner by acting on the naturally occurring ions […]
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19236
I have some questions regarding the statistics presented in this article. It states that up to 19 percent of women undergoing abortion experience regrets afterward. However, 50 percent of the women in the study have had multiple abortions. It seems reasonable to assume that these women would be far less likely to have regrets than […]
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19235
The first sentence in this article is incorrect when it refers to “a woman’s placenta.” A woman doesn’t have a placenta, nor does any other mammalian mother. The placenta is an organ of the fetus. The mother’s tissue ends at the uterus lining. Bruce S. SibbettSan Bernardino, Calif.
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Colossal Colon Tour
The Colossal Colon is a 40-foot-long, 4-foot-high replica of a human colon. Visitors can crawl through the colon or look through the viewing windows to see healthy colon tissue, colon disease, polyps, and various stages of colon cancer. Under the auspices of the Cancer Research and Prevention Foundation, the giant model will be on display […]
- Tech
Digital Cells
Researchers are gearing up to create cells with computer programs hardwired into the DNA.
- Animals
Fishy Paternity Defense: Bluegill dads: Not mine? Why bother?
Bluegill sunfish have provided an unusually tidy test of the much-discussed prediction that animal dads' diligence in child care depends on how certain they are that the offspring really are their own.
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19234
In your article, the possibility is mentioned that patients with Parkinson’s disease might have improved in the study because of the placebo effect rather than the administration of the protein glial-cell-line-derived neurotrophic factor. The article then says, “However, brain scans of these patients . . . showed that dopamine supplies in the putamen improved over […]
