Uncategorized
- Animals
News Brief: No hopping for these ancient ‘roos
By hopping, today’s kangaroos can scoot swiftly through the countryside. That was not true for some of their ancient cousins. True giants, those now-extinct kangaroos would have walked on two feet — and relied on their tippy-toes.
- Chemistry
Sunlight might have put oxygen in Earth’s early air
High-energy bursts of ultraviolet light can break apart carbon dioxide, yielding oxygen gas. The experiment may mimic what happened on Earth billions of years ago.
- Earth
How people have been shaping the Earth
We are the dominant force of change on Earth. Some experts propose naming our current time period the ‘Anthropocene’ to reflect our impact.
- Animals
Coming: The sixth mass extinction?
Species are dying off at such a rapid rate — faster than at any other time in human existence — that many resources on which we depend may disappear.
- Climate
Explainer: Understanding ice ages
Earth slowly wobbles, tilts and stretches (or contracts) as it orbits the sun. These changes may be fairly small and subtle. Still, their cumulative impacts can be huge — sometimes triggering the slow onset of an ice age or an abrupt thaw.
- Brain
Strong body helps the mind
Study finds new link between the body and brain in mice and may help explain how exercise heals.
- Brain
Exercise builds brawn — and brains
One 20-minute session of leg exercises improved memory recall by about 10 percent.
- Health & Medicine
News Brief: First cases of Ebola acquired outside Africa
Health workers who had worn extensive protective gear still became infected with Ebola while treating patients in Spain and the United States.
- Chemistry
Space cloud may hold clue to life’s origins
Scientists probing a cloud of dust and gas some 26,000 light-years away found a chemical with a structure resembling molecules critical for all life on Earth.
- Brain
The distracted teenage brain
Teens often show poor judgment in decision-making. Scientists have long blamed this on the fact that their brains are still developing. A new study offers another explanation: distractions form rewarding behaviors — ones that persist even after the reward itself has disappeared.
- Science & Society
Teen wins Nobel for support of educating girls
Malala Yousafzai survived an attempt on her life by extremists who protested her efforts to see that girls be allowed to go to school. Upon recovery, she expanded her outreach to beyond her Pakistani homeland. She has just become the youngest-ever Nobel Prize winner.
- Computing
Models: How computers make predictions
They use numbers to model real-world activities. And new insights in math are streamlining models’ design.
