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Archive: 04/02/2007

Rapid response was crucial to containing the 1918 flu pandemic

One of the persistent riddles of the deadly 1918 Spanish influenza pandemic is why it struck different cities with varying severity. Why were some municipalities such as St. Louis spared the fate of the hard-hit cities like ...

Medicine & Health / Research

created Apr 02, 2007 | popularity 5 / 5 (5) | comments 0

Deer denigrate Pennsylvania forests

Pennsylvania natural resources officials say the state's forests aren't showing any new growth because of overgrazing by deer.

Space & Earth / Environment

created Apr 02, 2007 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0

Drug reduces daily 'off' time for Parkinson patients

Parkinson disease patients taking the drug, ropinirole 24-hour prolonged release significantly reduced their daily "off" time in which Parkinson's symptoms like tremor, slowness, stiffness, and walking difficulty return as ...

Medicine & Health / Diseases

created Apr 02, 2007 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (4) | comments 0

First impressions: Computer model behaves like humans on visual categorization task

Computers can usually out-compute the human brain, but there are some tasks, such as visual object recognition, that the brain performs easily yet are very challenging for computers. The brain has a much more ...

Technology / Computer Sciences

created Apr 02, 2007 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (18) | comments 0

China's earliest modern human

Researchers at WUSTL and the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) in Beijing have been studying a 40,000-year-old early modern human skeleton found in China and have determined ...

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created Apr 02, 2007 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (26) | comments 0

Why the Rich Get Richer

A new theory shows how wealth, in different forms, can stick to some but not to others. The findings have implications ranging from the design of the Internet to economics.

Other Sciences / Other

created Apr 02, 2007 | popularity 3.2 / 5 (36) | comments 0

Picky-eater Flies Losing Smell Genes

A UC Davis researcher is hot on the scent of some lost fruit fly genes. According to population biology graduate student Carolyn McBride, the specialist fruit fly Drosophila sechellia is losing genes for smell and taste receptors ...

Biology /

created Apr 02, 2007 | popularity 3.5 / 5 (2) | comments 0

Iowa proposal reflects allergy crisis

A proposal in Iowa's Waukee Community School District to discourage having peanut products around area students has brought attention to a national issue.

Medicine & Health / Other

created Apr 02, 2007 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Diamonds are forever... diverse

A post-doctoral fellow at McGill University has discovered that diamonds may well be forever, but their origins are not necessarily as clear-cut as commonly believed.

Physics / Condensed Matter

created Apr 02, 2007 | popularity 3.8 / 5 (20) | comments 0

Novel experiments on cement yield concrete results

Using a brace of the most modern tools of materials research, a team from the National Institute of Standards and Technology and Northwestern University has shed new light on one of mankind’s older construction materials—cement.

Nanotechnology / Nanomaterials

created Apr 02, 2007 | popularity 4.2 / 5 (15) | comments 0

Gene induces eyes in odd spots

A gene thought to play a relatively minor role in eye development is powerful enough on its own to initiate the formation of eyes in strange spots on a fruit fly's body, Indiana University Bloomington scientists ...

Biology /

created Apr 02, 2007 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (7) | comments 0

Researchers Synthesize Brightest Fluorescent Particles Ever

Clarkson University Physics Professor Igor Sokolov and his team have discovered a method of making the brightest ever synthesized fluorescent silica particles.

Nanotechnology / Nanophysics

created Apr 02, 2007 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (29) | comments 0

Discovery of 'master switch' for the communication process between chloroplast and nuclei of plants

Scientists have puzzled for years in understanding how plants pass signals of stress due to lack of water or salinity from chloroplast to nucleus. They know that chloroplasts – the cellular organelles that give plants their ...

Biology /

created Apr 02, 2007 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (5) | comments 0

Laser Goes Tubing for Faster Body-Fluid Tests

University of Rochester researchers announce in the current issue of Applied Optics a technique that in 60 seconds or less measures multiple chemicals in body fluids, using a laser, white light, and a reflective tube. The te ...

Medicine & Health / Research

created Apr 02, 2007 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0

Flexible electronics could find applications as sensors, artificial muscles

Flexible electronic structures with the potential to bend, expand and manipulate electronic devices are being developed by researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory and the ...

Nanotechnology / Nanomaterials

created Apr 02, 2007 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (13) | comments 0