6,698 results
- Health & Medicine
Ephedra Finale
Last week, Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson announced that the Food and Drug Administration would soon outlaw U.S. sales of diet products containing stimulants derived from the Ephedra sinica plant. He timed the pronouncement to anticipate the start of the perennial diet season: New Year’s Day. Ephedra plant. Univ. of Calif., Davis […]
-
Spying on Plant Defenses: Insects monitor toxin ramp-up
A common caterpillar can sense when a plant is gearing up to manufacture insecticidal toxins and respond by starting up its own detoxification system.
- Animals
Vampire bats don’t learn from bad lunch
For the first time, a mammal has flunked a controlled test for developing a food aversion after getting sick just once, and that unusual creature is the common vampire bat.
-
19169
In this article you mention that Lyme disease is the most common “insect-borne” disease in the United States. Since Lyme disease is spread by ticks, and ticks have eight legs and are arachnids, Lyme disease is not insect-borne. Anne Van Aller Woodbine, Md.
- Animals
Hooking the Gullible
Research into fish behavior often reveals ways that bait designers can trick a fish into biting odd-looking lures, but angler appeal can also be an important marketing consideration.
-
Estrogen Shock: Mollusk gene rewrites history of sex hormone
Estrogen and similar hormones evolved much earlier than thought.
- Agriculture
Bt Cotton: Yields up in India; pests low in Arizona
Two cotton-growing centers that could hardly differ more—small farms in India and industrial fields in Arizona—provide case studies that show the bright side of a widespread genetically engineered crop.
- Plants
Sun-tracking dads make better pollen
In one of the first tests of paternal behavior in plants, snow buttercups that were allowed to follow their natural tendency to track sun movement made more-viable pollen than did tethered blooms.
- Health & Medicine
All Roads Lead to RUNX
Genetic mutations that predispose some people to the autoimmune diseases lupus, psoriasis, and rheumatoid arthritis appear to have a common molecular feature: They derail the work of a protein, called RUNX1, that regulates how active certain genes are.
-
Wasp redesigns web of doomed spider
A wasp larva injects a spider with a web-altering drug, driving the spider to spin a shelter just right for a wasp cocoon.
- Humans
From the December 31, 1932, issue
SIX COLORS MIX IN WATER AT BASE OF CAPITOL One of the most spectacular fountain lighting systems places the Capitol at Washington in a new setting, when the building is viewed from the direction of the Union Station. Engineers describe the recently installed system as a fixed color installation. Water in the fountain and terrace […]
- Animals
Musical Pairs: Egg-deploying bird species divide for a song
A new genetic analysis bolsters the idea that musical taste, rather than geography, split Africa's indigobirds into multiple species.
