Uncategorized
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Brain trait fosters stress disorder
A brain-scan study of pairs of twin brothers, in each of which only one twin had been a Vietnam combat veteran, indicates that the inheritance of an undersized brain structure called the hippocampus predisposes individuals to post-traumatic stress disorder.
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Ant cheats plant; plant cheats back
An Amazonian tree grows little pouches on its leaves to invite ants to move in and provide guard duty, but the tree drops the pouches from old leaves because ants ravage the flowers.
- Astronomy
Enlarging a Mars photo album
A new set of more than 18,000 images of Mars, posted online in early October, features the sharpest picture of the Red Planet ever taken by an orbiting spacecraft.
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- Earth
Once Upon a Lake
As Earth warmed at the end of the last ice age, the immense volumes of fresh water that occasionally and catastrophically spilled from Lake Agassiz—the long-defunct lake that formed as the ice sheet smothering Canada melted—may have caused global climate change and sudden rises in sea level.
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19196
The article claims that Lake Agassiz became the world’s largest lake. It seems to me that the same conditions should have occurred in Asia. Shouldn’t you compare Lake Agassiz to glacier-dam-produced lakes in Asia and contemporary freshwater versions of the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea? Robert W. DavisMillburn, N.J. According to Martin Jakobsson of […]
- Math
Election Selection
By ignoring how voters might rank all the candidates in an election, the plurality system opens the floodgates to unsettling, paradoxical results when there are three or more candidates.
- Health & Medicine
Hidden Effect? Hypertension risk linked to common, over-the-counter pain relievers
Women who take ibuprofen or acetaminophen for headaches or inflammation boost their chances of developing high blood pressure.
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19195
This article says that women taking some kinds of over-the-counter painkillers are more likely than others to have high blood pressure. The conclusion that the painkiller “boosts their chance of developing high blood pressure,” however, is unfounded. It’s also plausible that whatever causes the women to take the pain medication raises blood pressure. Geoffrey A. […]
- Astronomy
Iron-Poor Star: Closing in on the birth of the first stars
Astronomers have found a star so old and metal poor that its chemical composition carries vestiges of the origin of our galaxy.
- Animals
Fish Fraud: Cleaners show off before biting clients
Some of the reef fish that make their living by nibbling parasites off other fish may be luring clients into scams by offering free massages.
- Materials Science
Metal Manipulation: Technique yields hard but stretchy materials
Researchers have combined a standard metalworking technology—rolling—with a programmed sequence of cooling and heating steps to process copper into a form that contains both nanoscale and microscale crystal grains.
