June 2009

Carbon Dioxide Affects Fish Ear Structure

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High levels of carbon dioxide in the oceans may be causing mutations in fish, specifically affecting the bones in a fish’s ear.

Monkeyonomics - monopolies, markets and exchange rates in wild monkeys

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For vervet monkeys, grooming works like a biological market governed by the laws of supply and demand.

Uranium found on the Moon

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Scientists using data from the recently-Moon-smacked Kaguya spacecraft have found evidence of radioactive elements on the lunar surface, including, for the first time, uranium.

Frigid echidna sex - competition drives males to mate with hibernating females

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Echidna males will happily mate with females even if they're hibernating.

Death from the Spirals! Maybe not so much.

A 140 million year period to changes in Earth’s climate does not appear to be tied with the Sun’s orbit around the center of the Milky Way.

New drugs need new trials

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Higher dosages may not be better for a new generation of drugs that are intended to treat cancer, which has implications on how small clinical trials are designed.

Does having more competitors lower the motivation to compete?

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Our motivation to compete falls as the number of competitors rises, even if the chances of success are the same.

Alcohol causes one in 25 deaths worldwide

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Roughly one in 25 of all deaths worldwide may be caused in some way by alcohol, while it may also be responsible for more than half of the deaths in those aged 15 to 54 in Russia.

A Cometary Closeup for NExT

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NExT, previously known as the Stardust spacecraft, will be sent to comet Tempel 1 to observe the crater created by another spacecraft, Deep Impact.

Evidence for gene-autism link just published

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A new study identifies 27 loci that have rare copy number variations, where there are more or fewer repeated DNA segments than expected, common to the genomes of several children with autism spectrum disorder.