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Feed SubscriptionWomen with High Male Hormone Levels Face Sports Ban
By Joanna Marchant of Nature magazine Female athletes may not be eligible to compete as women if they have natural testosterone levels in the male range. [More]
Read More »Why Do Earthworms Surface After Rain?
Earthworms laying on sidewalks or streets after a heavy spring rain has become commonplace, but why do they do this ... and could they be a travel hazard? Researchers hypothesize several reasons why heavy rain storms bring crawlers out of their soil homes
Read More »Australian mathematicians say some endangered species "not worth saving"
Some endangered species on the brink of extinction might not be worth saving, according to a new algorithm developed by researchers at the University of Adelaide and James Cook University, both in Australia. Dubbed the SAFE (species' ability to forestall extinction) index, the formula takes current and minimum viable population sizes into account to determine if it is too costly to save a species from extinction
Read More »Budget Cuts Open Earth Observation Gap
The fiscal 2011 budget compromise crafted by the White House and congressional leaders would delay a key federal climate and weather satellite program, making a lengthy gap in critical environmental data a near certainty. Cuts contained in the 2011 budget plan would push back the launch of the first Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) orbiter by at least 18 months past the current 2016 target, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration chief Jane Lubchenco said yesterday.
Read More »7 Ways to Cultivate Your Creativity [Slide Show]
Creativity is a sought-after commodity among employers and those seeking personal or professional fulfillment. It comes in handy not only while concocting works of art and literature but also in planning a corporate event or devising a new business strategy.
Read More »The Unleashed Mind: Why Creative People Are Eccentric (preview)
He is one of the world’s best known and most successful entrepreneurs, with hundreds of patents to his name--including the Segway scooter. But you will never see Dean Kamen in a suit and tie: the eccentric inventor dresses almost exclusively in denim. He spent five years in college before dropping out, does not take vacations and has never married
Read More »Feed Your Mind
When we launched Scientific American Mind as a new publication in 2004, it seemed like a great opportunity to give readers more stories about popular areas of mind and brain research--which, fortuitously, were also booming because of imaging and other advances. What I didn’t realize at the time, but probably should have, is how often the findings in our pages would shake loose what I thought I knew about how our gray matter works
Read More »Social networking and energy conservation: What went wrong?
It was a match made in geek heaven. Combine the hottest online activity--social networking--with the biggest environmental challenge--energy conservation--and you get something yummier than peanut butter and chocolate. It's not just a mashup of buzzwords, either
Read More »Why Are Asthma Rates Soaring?
Asthma rates have been surging around the globe over the past three decades, and for a long time researchers thought they had a good idea of what might be fueling the increase: the world we live in is just a little too clean. According to this notion--known as the hygiene hypothesis--exposure in early childhood to infectious agents programs the immune system to mount differing highly effective defenses against disease-causing viruses, bacteria and parasites.
Read More »Cracking a Century-Old Enigma
For someone who died at the age of 32, the largely self-taught Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan left behind an impressive legacy. Number theorists have now finally managed to make sense of one of his more enigmatic statements, written just one year before his death in 1920.
Read More »Make or Breaker: Can a Tsunami Warning System Save Lives During an Earthquake?
It was a through-the-looking-glass moment for Chris Goldfinger, sitting in a meeting about Sumatran earthquakes on a recent Friday afternoon in Chiba, Japan, on the outskirts of Tokyo.
Read More »Fossil footprints of early modern humans found in Tanzania
MINNEAPOLIS--Newly discovered fossil footprints at a site in northern Tanzania on the shore of Lake Natron capture a moment in time around 120,000 years ago when a band of 18 humans--early members of our own species, Homo sapiens --traipsed across wet volcanic ash to an unknown destination.
Read More »Paul Davies: Physics Could Help Fight Cancer
“Only 10 percent of people die from primary tumors.
Read More »Cod Ranching Could Keep Fishermen Flush
By Daniel Cressey of Nature magazine Ranching cod off the coast of Iceland is far more financially sensible than conventional fishing methods or keeping the fish in cages, according to a new analysis. Fish ranching -- where the animals are free to roam but trained to return to a certain point so they can be caught -- could one day become a significant part of global fisheries, fitting between traditional catching and aquaculture, says Bj
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