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80beats

Have People Seen Quantum Entanglement With the Naked Eye? It’s Complicated
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photons

What’s the News: Quantum effects like entanglement and superposition are surpassingly strange, and also impossible for humans to see, occurring as they do at the level of subatomic particles. But now researchers have set up an experiment that makes the effects of quantum entanglement visible to the naked eye—at least in theory.

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May 3rd, 2011 1:42 PM Tags: entanglement, quantum physics
by Veronique Greenwood in Physics & Math | No Comments »
Our Ancient Cousin “Nutcracker Man” Actually Ate Like a Cow: Lots of Grass
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What’s the News: It turns out that the strong-jawed, big-toothed human relative colloquially known as “Nutcracker man” may never have tasted a nut. In a finding that questions traditional ideas of early hominid diet, researchers discovered that Paranthropus boisei, a hominid living in east Africa between 2.3 and 1.2 million years ago, mostly fed on grasses and sedges. “Frankly, we didn’t expect to find the primate equivalent of a cow dangling from a remote twig of our family tree,” researcher Matt Sponheimer told MSNBC. Read the rest of this entry »

May 3rd, 2011 1:21 PM Tags: early humans, evolution, food, hominid, Journal of Human Evolution
by Patrick Morgan in Human Origins, Living World | 3 Comments »
Can Video Games Help Sick Kids Stick to Their Treatments?
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bowling
Video games might do more than get you off your fanny.

What’s the News: Getting in shape with Wii Bowling was just the beginning: scientists are now studying whether videogames that use breath as a controller can encourage healthy habits in children with cystic fibrosis.

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May 2nd, 2011 4:34 PM Tags: biofeedback, cystic fibrosis, video games
by Veronique Greenwood in Health & Medicine, Technology | 1 Comment »
Researchers Erase Memories Directly From Neurons Themselves
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Aplysia californica

What’s the News: Researchers have considerably weakened—and perhaps even erased—long-term memories in Aplysia, a type of marine slug, and in neurons in a lab dish, by blocking the activity of a particular enzyme. Understanding how to weaken and erase such memories could one day lead to new treatments for people suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, who are haunted by memories of traumatic events.

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May 2nd, 2011 12:22 PM Tags: memory, neurons, neuroscience, PTSD
by Valerie Ross in Health & Medicine, Mind & Brain | 6 Comments »
Bacteria Evade Antibiotics by Going Incognito
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ecoli

What’s the News: Going undercover can require some sacrifices–burning off your fingerprints, for instance, a la Gattaca. It’s the same story with bacteria: they can slip below antibiotics’ radar without any mutations, but only using an elaborate system of self-sabotage. A new study reveals the workings of this biochemical disguise.

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April 30th, 2011 9:24 AM Tags: antibiotics, bacteria, drug resistance, Nature Chemical Biology
by Veronique Greenwood in Health & Medicine, Living World | 3 Comments »
Crowdsourced Project Shows Some Snail Shells Lightening in Warming World
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