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"Long before it's in the papers"
June 17, 2013

 = EXCLUSIVES = 

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* * * LATEST * * *

Studies may have overestimated our generosity
Scientists recre­ated a game of­ten used to as­sess peo­ple’s al­tru­ism—but this time there was a twist, and a darker re­sult.

 

Already-approved drug tied to longer, healthy lives in mice
The first drug to suc­cess­fully ex­tend the life­span of nor­mal lab mice al­so does so in a way that pro­longs their healthy ex­ist­ence, a stu­dy sug­gests.

Men want status from romantic relationships, research finds
A set of surveys suggests men and women get self-es­teem from rela­t­ion­ships in dif­fer­ent ways.

 

Killed twice in 1600s, hoax “dragon” slain again—in creationism dispute
Scient­ists say they’ve proven what some suspected three centuries ago: the swamp dra­gon from Rome was a hoax. And maybe now it mat­ters more.

Yes, gentlemen, size matters—but something else matters more, study finds
Scientists as­sessed how pe­nis size, body height and body shape inter­act to in­flu­ence fe­male rank­ings of male al­lure.

 

Babies may be drawn to those who mistreat the “different”
Re­searchers report new evi­dence that hard-to-eradi­cate bia­ses based on race, sex and other diff­er­ences take root early in life.

Your brain cells may be capable of outliving you—by a lot
New findings make scient­ists hope­ful that if hu­man life­span is increased, brain cells will coop­erate by liv­ing long­er accord­ing­ly.

 

Chimps found to play fairness game like people
In some im­por­tant ways, chimps may have more hu­man-like con­cepts of fair­ness than pre­vi­ously rec­og­nized, bi­ol­o­gists say.

For signs of life, some strange planetary systems may be most promising
Atmos­pheric chem­icals be­tray­ing the pre­sence of alien life might be de­tect­able around white dwarf stars, a study says.

Did some Neanderthals learn advanced skills from “moderns”?
Sur­pris­ing­ly, some Ne­an­der­thal peo­ple seem to have made body or­na­ments and soph­is­t­icated tools, a study re­ports.


Theory that cooking gave us big brains gains support
New research backs up a the­o­ry that the ad­vent of cook­ing al­most two mill­ion years ago en­abled hu­mans to get smart­er.

Friendliness to minorities may often be a performance—a fragile one
Many whites be­have ex­tra nicely to mi­nor­i­ties, but it’s often an act that ar­ises from a sense of obli­ga­t­ion, new re­search sug­gests.


 

Gospel of Matthew linked to trail of bizarre self-mutilations
A particu­lar set of verses from a book in the Bi­ble has crea­ted con­stern­ation among some med­i­cal pro­fes­sionals.

“Racial purity” DNA testing slammed as perversion, but halting practice might not be easy
A pol­i­ti­cian has sparked out­rage af­ter re­port­ed­ly tak­ing a DNA test for a shock­ing pur­pose. But just where the red line lies is not wide­ly agreed up­on.

Moral “taint” still seeps along familial lines
We are still blamed to some de­gree for the mis­deeds of our rel­a­tives, ac­cord­ing to a set of newly re­ported sur­veys.


American heads have been changing shape, but why?
White people’s heads in the Unit­ed States have got­ten taller and nar­row­er since the days the steam­ship was king, re­search indi­cates.

Cold case solved? Study probes riddle of sinking beer bubbles
Bub­bles in dark beer are seen to slide down­ward, iron­ic­ally, be­cause they’re trying to head up­ward, a study re­ports.

Move elephants into Australia, scientist proposes
Does the Land Down Under need an in­fu­sion of large mam­mals to solve its ec­o­log­i­cal and wild­fire prob­lems?


Was blackmail essential for marriage to evolve?
A study takes a cold new look at a cus­tom as ancient and firmly estab­lished as it is sa­cred to mil­lions.

A human bias against creativity is hindering science, research claims
Most of us love crea­ti­vi­ty—until it ac­tually comes knock­ing, some psy­cho­lo­gists say.

Pluto has even colder “twin” of similar size, studies find
A “d­warf plan­et” or­bit­ing our sun three times fur­ther away than Plu­to is about the size of that better-known, frig­id world, as­tro­no­mers say.

 

Could simple anger have taught people to cooperate?
A new study chal­lenges one of the lead­ing the­o­ries as a sol­u­tion for an evo­lu­tion­ary puz­zle.

Different cultures’ music matches their speech styles, study finds
Re­search­ers have de­bat­ed for years what the bi­o­log­i­cal ba­sis of mu­sic might be.

 

Your parrot isn’t just parroting, study suggests

While many own­ers will at­test that pet par­rots have a pur­pose in their talk­ing, the sub­ject was lit­tle stud­ied be­fore re­cent­ly. 

Music making may help keep mind in tune in old age
Long­time play­ing of a mu­si­cal in­stru­ment may help keep your mind sharp as others’ start go­ing flat, re­search sug­gests.

 

Tiny bugs have own personalities despite being clones, scientists say
Ti­ny green in­sects known as pea aphids have in­di­vid­ual be­hav­ior pat­terns, or “per­sonal­i­ties,” a study re­ports.

Does a smile mean something to a dog?
Dogs can learn to tell apart smiles from blank ex­pres­sions in pho­tos of peo­ple, a study has found.


Why do men use silly pickup lines?
A new study assesses the psych­o­logy and suc­cess rates of va­rious gam­bits by which men try to get women’s at­ten­tion.

"Forests" detectable even in distant solar systems, scientists suggest
Once humans start im­ag­ing Earth-like plan­ets in other solar systems, tree-like life forms might also be detectable, a study proposes.






Bars may kill spiral galaxies
Some lovely cos­mic struct­ures may event­ual­ly come un­done, say re­search­ers aided by cit­i­zen vol­un­teers.

 = MORE NEWS = 

Research paints new picture of “dinobird” feathers
Ar­chae­op­ter­yx, a fa­mous fos­sil link­ing di­no­saurs and birds, had light-col­ored feath­ers with a dark edge and tip, an anal­y­sis in­di­cates.

 

Bacteria found to arrange themselves in hidden patterns
Sci­en­tists have dis­cov­ered strange, branch­ing pat­terns in bac­te­ri­al popula­t­ions.

Eww! 95% don’t wash hands properly
Re­mem­ber mom’s ad­vice about wash­ing your hands thor­oughly af­ter us­ing the re­stroom?

 

Study: Hidden wildfires taking big toll on Amazon rainforest
A pre­vi­ously un­mapped type of Am­a­zon rain­for­est wild­fire is de­stroy­ing sev­er­al times more for­est than defor­esta­t­ion wipes out, sci­en­tists say.

Bird has different dances for different songs
Male su­perb lyre­birds of­ten move their bod­ies to the mu­sic in a chore­ographed way, say re­search­ers.

 

Oldest nearly complete primate fossil reported
A fossil from Chi­na could help scient­ists under­stand the story of prim­ates, a line­age that includes peo­ple, apes and mon­keys.

Sunscreen slows skin aging, study finds
Daily use of sun­screen slows skin ag­ing in the young and mid­dle-aged, a study has found.

 

Meeting online may lead to happier marriages
If you’re still turn­ing up your nose at “on­line dat­ing,” you might want to think again, a study sug­gests.

Ending poverty, protecting nature go hand in hand: UN report
Wip­ing out pov­er­ty will re­quire pro­tect­ing the en­vi­ron­ment, a Un­ited Na­t­ions pan­el con­cludes.

Astronomers hope to find alien civilizations through heat
A new proposal in­volves watch­ing plan­ets to check for ab­nor­mal amounts of in­fra­red, or heat, ra­dia­tion.

 

Some may beat “guilt-detection” tests by suppressing memories
Tests de­signed to check brain ac­ti­vity for signs of guilty mem­o­ries are in use in sev­er­al coun­tries—but they’re not fool­proof, a study sug­gests.

Rats have “double view” of world
Keeping the world over­head in per­ma­nent view seems to come at the ex­pense of an abil­ity that hu­mans take for granted, scien­tists say.

 

Even farm animal diversity is waning, experts say
A new con­serva­t­ion group mod­eled on the In­ter­gov­ern­ment­al Pan­el on Cli­mate Change is try­ing to ad­dress bio­div­ers­ity loss.

Overeating learned in infancy, study suggests
Some sim­ple par­ent­ing prac­tices may sub­stant­ially re­duce a child’s risk of obe­sity, re­search­ers say.

 

Allosaurus ate more like a falcon, T. rex more like a croc, study finds
Seem­ing­ly simi­lar dino­saurs may have had quite different feed­ing styles.

Hurricanes are part of forecast—for Saturn moon
Ti­tan might be in for wild weath­er and some of its first known waves.

Mammoths may have died after impact from space
Tiny balls of car­bon hint at a dis­aster that melted rock and af­fected at least four cont­i­nents, sci­ent­ists say.

 

Stacking 2-D materials leads to surprises
A near­ly perf­ectly flat “won­der mat­erial” called graph­ene lacks one key property. Phy­sic­ists hope to reme­dy that.

Does your physical strength influence your politics?
Men’s upper-body strength pre­dicts some of their po­liti­cal views, ac­cord­ing to new re­search.

NASA planet-hunting telescope breaks down
A NASA space­craft de­signed to hunt for Earth-like plan­ets has bro­ken, and agen­cy sci­en­tists don’t know wheth­er they will be able to fix it.

 

Cotton may offer “eco-friendly” way to clean up oil spills
A cheap form of raw cot­ton re­port­edly can sop up more than 30 times its weight in oil.

New principle may help explain why nature is quantum
Like chil­dren, sci­en­tists are al­ways ask­ing “why?” One ques­tion they’ve yet to an­swer is why na­ture pick­ed quan­tum phys­ics.

Study may overturn thinking on human intellect
The hu­man edge in in­tel­li­gence is­n’t due mainly to the large size of the front part of our brain, new research indicates.

 

Moon, Earth water traced to same source: ancient meteorites
The moon’s wa­ter, like Earth’s, came from small, prim­i­tive me­te­orites in the first 100 mil­lion years or so of the so­lar sys­tem, re­search­ers say.

Anti-cocaine vaccine getting ready for prime time
Preliminary tests are done and hu­man test­ing should beg­in with­in a year, sci­ent­ists re­port.

World Science Archive
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Flowers, not quite from nature Sub-micro­scopic "flower" sculp­tures such as this one self-as­sem­bled out of crys­tals simp­ly as a result of sci­entists man­i­pu­lating chemical gra­dients in a beak­er. A gra­dient is a gra­dually chang­ing con­cen­tra­tion of a substance from place to place. The im­age is art­i­ficial­ly co­lored and was cap­tured using an elec­tron micro­scope. Click on the image for more im­ages and in­for­mation. (Cour­tesy Har­vard U. School of En­gin­eer­ing & Ap­plied Sci­ences)

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News alerts
* Meteoroid impact triggers bright flash on the moon (Reuters)

* NASA spacecraft's planet-hunting days may be over (AP)

* Evidence backs up accounts of cannibalism at colonial Jamestown (NBC)
* See-through brains clarify connections (Nature.com)

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