Uncategorized
-
Babies show an eye for faces
By 9 weeks of age, babies can learn to recognize and favor a new face in a matter of minutes.
- Health & Medicine
Genomes of dangerous bacteria exposed
Researchers unveiled the genomes of bacteria that cause severe food poisoning, typhoid fever, and the plague that devastated the Middle Ages.
- Health & Medicine
Cancer drugs may thwart Huntington’s
Drugs developed to fight cancer could also be effective against Huntington's disease and several related neurodegenerative conditions.
- Earth
Tube worms like it hot, but larvae not
The larvae of some tube worms that attach themselves to the seafloor around hydrothermal vents can't stand the heat there, but they go into a state of suspended animation when they drift into the chilly water nearby.
- Earth
Desert glass: Is it baked Australia?
A profusion of fused, glassy material found on the desert plain of southern Australia might be the result of the intense heat from an extraterrestrial impact.
-
19042
The brief article on the discovery of sheets of melted sand in Australia mentioned several possible sources of the heat that produced this material, but it failed to mention the most probable source–the impact of a comet on the upper atmosphere. The nature of comets is that when they encounter an atmosphere of significant density […]
- Earth
Wind Chill Update
The National Weather Service has revised its formula for calculating wind chill. These Web pages feature an explanation of the changes, a new wind chill chart relating temperature and wind speed, and a handy wind chill calculator. Go to: http://205.156.54.206/om/windchill/.
-
From the November 21, 1931, issue
TURKEYS The beautiful bronze turkeys that furnish the biggest specimens for the family festivities were domesticated before white men came to America. Cortez found them in the markets of Mexico, and showed that he was a gourmet as well as freebooter; for turkeys soon found their way to Spain and thence all over Europe, finally […]
- Health & Medicine
Heart pump extends patients’ survival
Patients who have an implanted device to help the heart pump blood have a higher survival rate than patients getting only heart medication.
- Astronomy
SOHO craft gets the lowdown on sunspots
Using sound waves to obtain the first clear picture of the structure beneath the surface of a sunspot, scientists say they now have an explanation for why these dark blemishes-sites of intense magnetic activity-can persist for days.
- Archaeology
Farmers took fast track in settling Europe
A review of radiocarbon evidence indicates that farming groups colonized southern Europe over no more than 100 to 200 years, beginning around 7,400 years ago.
-
18978
The article notes that Joo Zilho has hypothesized that the rapid spread of agriculture in Europe occurred as a result of peoples need to escape conflicts in heavily populated communities marked by class and social division. I believe a more likely cause is the catastrophic flooding of the Black Sea, which occurred 7,500 years ago. […]
