1,375 results
- Life
2009 Science News of the Year: Life
Breeding records for sheep on Hirta offer an unusual opportunity to study inheritance. Image Credit: Arpat Ozgul Gentler winters shrink sheepWarming has trumped the benefits of fat to shrink sheep on the remote North Atlantic island of Hirta, a new analytical approach has revealed (SN: 8/1/09, p. 12). Weights for wild female Soay sheep dropped […]
- Life
Mother right whales know best, maybe
Southern right whales learn where to eat from mom and may not seek new feeding grounds if these favorite restaurants go belly-up.
- Math
Million-dollar math prize awarded, but not necessarily accepted
The reclusive mathematician who proved the Poincaré conjecture may or may not claim his prize.
- Life
First songbird genome arrives with spring
The genome of a songbird has been decoded for the first time. Zebra finches join chickens as the only birds to have detailed maps of their genetic blueprints.
- Ecosystems
Pacific Northwest salmon poisoning killer whales
A protected population of resident orcas around Vancouver Island and Puget Sound is the planet’s most PCB-contaminated mammals, says one researcher.
- Animals
Whaling, to be announced
The 60th meeting of the International Whaling Commission defers voting on deadlocked issues
- Health & Medicine
PCBs hike blood pressure
No one would choose to eat polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs — yet we unwittingly do. And a new study finds that the cost of their pervasive contamination of our food supply can be elevated blood pressure, a major risk factor for heart disease.
-
Stranded: A whale of a mystery
Scientists generally agree that sonar can trigger strandings of certain whales, but no one really knows what leads these deep divers to the beach.
- Life
Bacteria seen swimming the electron shuffle
Researchers have captured the bacterium Shewanella’s behavior on film, and the microbes didn’t behave as expected
- Life
Ocean’s gazillion
A picture of past ocean life suggests a higher capacity for marine life than what modern habitats host.
- Humans
Whaling back to the future
International commission meets after soul-searching on years of dispute.
-
Letters
Plan for a long stay Lawrence Krauss’ idea of staying permanently on Mars (SN: 10/10/09, p.4) is fascinating, but criticism by John F. Fay and Jeffry Mueller (Feedback, SN: 11/21/09 p.29) missed important information. Krauss too missed the best of all scientific comparisons. Regarding the travel to the American continent by the Pilgrims: the “capital […]
