New guidelines for preventing strokes spell out for the first time the risks faced by women, noting that pre-term births and conditions like endometriosis and early menopause can raise the risk. “Prior guidelines tended to be sex-agnostic,” said Dr. Brian Snelling, director of the stroke program at Baptist Health South …
Read More »Bruce Ames, 95, Dies; Biochemist Discovered Test for Toxic Chemicals
Bruce Nathan Ames, a biochemist who discovered a revolutionary method of detecting potential carcinogens, paving the way for the banning of many commonly used chemicals, died on Oct. 5 in Berkeley, Calif. He was 95. His wife, Giovanna Ferro-Luzzi Ames, said his death, in a hospital, was from complications after …
Read More »Brazilian Fossil Hints at Older Origin for All Dinosaurs
A dog-size reptile slipped through fern-choked forests 237 million years ago in what is today Paraíso do Sul, Brazil. The animal had the body of a greyhound, a long neck and tail, and a small, nipping beak. Running on four, upright legs, the reptile looked remarkably like an early dinosaur. …
Read More »Reinventing Concrete, the Ancient Roman Way
In June, the Italian Ministry of Culture announced the excavation of a new room, not yet open to the public, in the ruins of Pompeii. A few weeks later, a group of archaeologists gathered to marvel at it: walls covered with bright blue paint — an expensive pigment reserved for …
Read More »These Tiny Worms Account for at Least 4 Nobel Prizes
When scientists win the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, they typically thank family and colleagues, maybe their universities or whoever funded their research. This year, as the molecular biologist Gary Ruvkun accepted the most prestigious award of his career, he spent a few minutes lauding his experimental subject: a …
Read More »Sperm Can’t Unlock an Egg Without This Ancient Molecular Key
They’re the original odd couple: One is massive, spherical and unmoving. The other is tiny, has a tail and never stops swimming. Yet the union of egg and sperm is critical for every sexually reproducing animal on Earth. Exactly how that union occurs has long been a mystery to scientists. …
Read More »How Early Humans Evolved to Eat Starch
As soon as you put starch in your mouth — whether in the form of a dumpling, a forkful of mashed potatoes or a saltine — you start breaking it down with an enzyme in your saliva. That enzyme, known as amylase, was critically important for the evolution of our …
Read More »Parachutes Made of Mucus Change How Some Scientists See the Ocean
The ocean is filled with microscopic creatures that thrive in the sunshine. These bacteria and plankton periodically clump up with detritus, like waste produced by fish, and then drift softly downward, transforming into what scientists call marine snow. In the inky depths of the ocean that the sun can’t reach, …
Read More »Space: The Final Fashion Frontier
In its quest to shape the aesthetics of everything, the fashion world has extended its glossy, well-decorated tentacles into all sorts of unexpected areas: sports, film, hotels, furniture, publishing. And, as of Wednesday, space. The cosmos is not just the final frontier, apparently. It’s the final fashion frontier. Or so …
Read More »Columbia Cancer Surgeon Notches 5 More Retractions for Suspicious Data
The chief of a cancer surgery division at Columbia University this week had five research articles retracted and a sixth tagged with an editor’s note, underscoring concerns about research misconduct that have lately bedeviled Columbia as well as cancer labs at several other elite American universities. With the latest retractions, …
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