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- Health & Medicine
Reptilian drug may help treat diabetes
The synthetic version of exendin-4, a compound in gila monster venom, helps insulin injections control blood sugar in people with type I, or juvenile-onset, diabetes.
By Nathan Seppa -
18936
I am grateful to Science News for having achieved with your words what no doctor has managed in the past 20 years: cured my diabetes. I now find that my average blood sugar falls safely within the range 80 to 240 milligrams per deciliter cited in the article as normal. On the strength of this […]
By Science News - Health & Medicine
Thinking blurs when blood sugar strays
Blood sugar concentrations that are too high or too low can impair thinking and, in the case of low blood sugar, driving ability.
By Nathan Seppa -
18960
This concerns the story discussing the ability of flowers to protect their reproductive parts by closing up during a rain storm. I recently observed what may be other mechanisms to achieve the same end in flowers that can’t close up. As a storm approaches, Queen Anne’s lace dips its flat umbels to a vertical position […]
By Science News -
Shut up! A thunderstorm’s on the way
The narrow-leafed gentian, a mountain blossom, is the first flower shown to close when a thunderstorm apporaches.
By Susan Milius -
A bad month for condors
Two California condors in the wild—a hatching and a just-released juvenile—died the same week, as a third went missing.
By Janet Raloff - Astronomy
A comet continues to crumble
Ever since astronomers first spied a comet 6 months ago and officially dubbed it C/2001 A2, the icy body has been breaking apart.
By Ron Cowen - Astronomy
A new giant in the Kuiper belt
An icy body in the Kuiper belt, a reservoir of comets in the solar system beyond Neptune, is a record setter for the belt and bigger than Pluto's moon Charon.
By Ron Cowen -
Tests hint bird tails are misunderstood
A test of starling's tails in a wind tunnel suggests that the standard practice of extrapolating bird tail aerodynamics from delta-wing aircraft may be a mistake.
By Susan Milius - Health & Medicine
Radiation harms blood vessels before gut
The side-effects of radiation therapy may result from initial damage to blood vessels.
By John Travis - Health & Medicine
Sticky platelets boost blood clots
Tests for genetic variations of a key protein on platelets, the cell-like blood components that form clots, and their propensity to clump could help physicians determine optimal medication for heart disease patients.
By Nathan Seppa -
Sticky Situations
Bacteria find strength in numbers as members of huge, mucous-covered communities called biofilms that can stall, equip, and initiate fierce infections.