Uncategorized
- Health & Medicine
Hormone therapy falls out of favor
Several studies now indicate that health risks associated with hormone replacement therapy for postmenopausal women outweigh its benefits.
- Archaeology
Ancient site yields a copper whopper
Excavations in Jordan revealed the largest known Early Bronze Age metal-production facility, where workers crafted high-quality copper tools and ingots beginning around 4,700 years ago.
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Men of Prey
Scientists have started to uncover the roots of rape and child molesting, although questions remain about whether it's possible to identify who will be a repeat sex offender or to provide effective treatment for such behavior.
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19022
All of the characteristics the researchers ascribe to sexual abusers–hostile masculinity, penchant for impersonal assembly-line sex, sexual preoccupation, emotional callousness, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder–prevent them from forming enduring emotionally intimate attachments. Perhaps abusers turn to domination sex in the vain attempt to relieve their frustration through an imposed physical intimacy they control. Marilyn M. KramerWausau, Wis. […]
- Ecosystems
Making Scents of Flowers
Science gets the tools to start sniffing around the ecology of floral scent.
- Math
Taxicab Numbers
Curious properties sometimes lurk within seemingly undistinguished numbers. Consider the story concerning Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887–1920). His friend G.H. Hardy (1877–1947) once remarked that the taxi by which he had arrived had a “dull” number–1729, or 7 x 13 x 19. Ramanujan was quick to point out that 1729 is actually a “very interesting” […]
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From the July 23, 1932, issue
DROP OF OIL ATOMIZED INTO 100,000,000 PARTICLES A tiny drop of fuel oil no larger than the head of a safety match has been torn into 100,000,000 particles at the research laboratory of the General Electric Co., Schenectady, N.Y., it is announced. Intensely hot combustion results at high efficiency. Engineers are expected to apply the […]
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Follow that Fossil!
The Denver Museum of Nature and Science offers an introduction to the process of finding fossils and learning from them about the past. The museum’s Web site describes the prospecting, excavation, preparation, and exhibition of various types of plant and animal specimens. Go to: http://www.dmns.org/denverbasin2/fossil/
- Astronomy
Dying star illuminates its own shroud
Images of a planetary nebula, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope in 1997 but only recently assembled as a color composite, show a shroud of material cast off and ionized by the dying, sunlike star Henize 3-401.
- Archaeology
The Original Cocoa Treat: Chemistry pushes back first use of the drink
Analysis of residues from ancient Maya vessels has revealed that the pots held cocoa almost 1,000 years before its previously known earliest use.
- Health & Medicine
Sleepy Heads: Low fuel may drive brain’s need to sleep
A new study supports the hypothesis that dwindling energy stores in the waking brain induce sleep.
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19089
As I recall, neural networks also require, from time to time, periods of very low input in order to maintain their learning efficiencies. Neural-network researchers call these periods sleep, yet these networks obviously don’t require glycogen to function. Thus, it always seemed to me that sleep is probably more of a requirement of the neurons’ […]
