Uncategorized
- Health & Medicine
Cool Jobs: Data detectives
Statisticians are experts in seeing the patterns hidden within the raw numbers called data. They especially excel at finding real trends, while eliminating what is actually due to chance. That’s why they offer a good reality check in any field that involves numbers.
- Animals
Look ma — no stomach
Many animals can digest their meals without an acid-producing stomach. And research now shows they jettisoned those stomachs a long, long time ago.
- Computing
The data flood
Mountains of data drive advances in science, medicine and other fields. Here’s how they might affect you.
- Computing
Explainer: Data — waiting to become information
People want information. To get it, experts must sift through facts to find trends and other types of useful knowledge that has value.
- Computing
Explainer: Understanding the size of data
Data are beginning to accumulate in quantities of mammoth size.
- Science & Society
Human ancestors threw spears
Who threw first? Scientists had long believed that ancient people who lived 80,000 years ago were the first to throw spears with stone tips. But the discovery of 279,000-year-old stone spear tips in Ethiopia pushes that date back, and suggests prehuman species hunted with spears too.
- Science & Society
Bigger groups make better tools
As the size of a population grows, so too does its ability to quickly create clever new tools. Lab experiments suggest that connections between people give rise to the new creations.
- Life
Caught in the act
Scientists observe some evolutionary speed demons as they adapt over the course of just a few years to new environmental conditions.
- Fossils
Early tyrannosaurs would have feared this predator
A newfound dinosaur fossil appears to explain why ancestors of T. rex didn’t begin their growth in size — and dominance — any earlier than they did.
- Brain
Inheriting fear
Scared of something and don’t know why? Maybe your parents or grandparents passed along their fear to you, a new mouse study suggests.
- Animals
Mimicking mussels’ muscle
People who seek to get a grip on something — especially in wet environments — might want to take a lesson from some common shellfish. Among those who might benefit most: surgeons.
- Health & Medicine
New problem linked to ‘jet lag’
The body’s internal clock can be thrown off when people alter their day and night routines. That mix-up may lead to a buildup of immune cells that can cause inflammation, according to a new study on mice.
