Uncategorized
- Animals
Pregnant—and Still Macho
Some of the basic theories of sexual behavior and sexual selection are getting attention thanks to a burst of new studies in the topsy-turvy social world of the seahorse, where the males get pregnant.
- Animals
Hormone still rules no-tadpole frogs
Coqui frogs may skip the tadpole stage, but within the egg, they undergo a metamorphosis ruled by thyroid hormone.
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Brain cells work together to pay attention
Cells in the brain's cortex may coordinate their electrical activity as attention shifts from visual to tactile information.
- Earth
Hey polluters! This billboard’s for you
Motorists generally like and respond to personalized billboard messages about when an engine tune-up may be warranted.
- Health & Medicine
HIV sexual spread exploits immune sentinels
The virus that causes AIDS latches onto a protein called DC-SIGN to hitch a ride on immune cells in mucus membranes and spread through the body.
- Health & Medicine
Cell transplants combat diabetes in mice
Scientists have successfully reversed diabetes in mice by harvesting immature pancreatic cells that make insulin from one mouse, growing them in culture, and transplanting them into a mouse with the disease, which then recedes.
- Planetary Science
Meteoric wallop may have diversified life
A new study suggests that the evolutionary burst on Earth some 540 million years ago occurred around the time that cosmic debris began pummeling our planet at an increasing rate.
- Materials Science
Rice hulls could nourish Silicon Valley
Scientists are developing ways to extract and purify the silicon that occurs naturally in rice hulls.
- Earth
Pollution Keeps Rain up in the Air
New satellite data indicate that aerosol pollution can break up water droplets in clouds and stop rain.
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Corn Defenses: Bitten plants deploy gut-rotting enzyme
Some corn varieties that arose on the Caribbean island of Antigua defend themselves with chemical attacks that leave insect gut linings in tatters.
- Health & Medicine
Smoking Gun? Mouse tests link nicotine to crib death
Nicotine may impair a molecule that's necessary for arousing people and other animals from sleep, an effect that could account for the heightened risk of sudden infant death syndrome in babies born to women who smoked during pregnancy.
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There are unfortunate multiple misuses of the word “artificial” in describing lab-grown diamonds in this article. In gemological use, artificial means imitation or not real. In fact, the lab-grown diamonds described in your article are real, synthetic diamonds with all the properties and chemistry of natural diamonds. Fred WardBethesda, Md.
