Monthly Archives: February 2003

microporn

Perhaps you’ve heard of astroporn, those gorgeous, glowing images of planets and galaxies and pillars of gas found on Web sites like Astronomy Picture of the Day (http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html). But what if you’re looking for something, say, a bit more intimate? … Continue reading

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younger mungo backs “out of africa” theory

Mungo Man, Australia’s oldest known human remains, is 20,000 years younger than previously thought, according to James Bowler of the University of Melbourne and colleagues in the Feb. 20 Nature. Mungo Man was discovered at Lake Mungo in New South … Continue reading

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are humans becoming a mane course?

It was long thought that healthy lions posed relatively little threat to people: Only sick or injured animals, unable to catch and kill their usual fast-moving prey, would attack slower humans. For example, the famous man-eating lions of Tsavo that … Continue reading

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new on television: a look at the pill that changed the world

It’s hard to imagine a time when American women didn’t have the option to plan their reproductive lives. Just 50 years ago, however, contraceptive devices were illegal in many states, and a revolution was brewing: A pill was being developed … Continue reading

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alien invaders leave their enemies behind

Plants such as kudzu and animals such as zebra mussels, which can be harmless in their country of origin, can be a pest elsewhere, playing havoc with local wildlife and having huge economic costs. Two studies in the Feb. 6 … Continue reading

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no shortage of frozen water at mars’s poles

Both of Mars’s polar ice caps consist mostly of frozen water, report Shane Byrne and Andrew Ingersoll of the California Institute of Technology in last week’s Science. It was long thought that the southern ice cap was made almost entirely … Continue reading

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the right way to smooch

Imagine kissing someone – not a peck on the cheek, but full lip-to-lip contact. How do you tilt your head? Chances are, it’ll be to the right. Researchers have known for a long time that embryos and infants show a … Continue reading

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new on television: at the top of the bottom of the world

If you’re an armchair adventurer and have read books about mountain climbing like Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air or enjoyed miniseries on polar exploration like Shackleton, then you’ll want to watch Nova tonight on WGBH-TV (Channel 2). The episode, “Mountain … Continue reading

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mom coochy-coos better than dad

A computer program has decided that women are better than men at baby talk. Designed by Gerald McRoberts of Lehigh University in Pennsylvania and Malcolm Slaney of IBM’s Almaden Research Center in California, the program listens to speech and analyzes … Continue reading

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sperm seek the heat

Sperm cells act like heat-seeking missiles when it comes to locating an unfertilized egg, according to a paper published in the February Nature Medicine. The egg tends to lie in a spot around 2 degrees Celsius warmer than the place … Continue reading

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