Certain forms of bacteria feasting on sewage give off hydrogen sulfide, a really malodorous chemical, and one of several that give sewage its pleasing smell. In general this problem has been treated with powerful chemicals like bleachnot at all good...
So to light up the cortex when they assumed a stroke would occur, the researchers tweaked the rats sensitive whiskers as a sort of trigger. But as they discovered, stimulating just a single whisker did more than activate the cerebral cortex. It also...
What can be done? A new treatment being tried out by a few doctors, including Dr. Robert Levy, a neurosurgeon at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, involves zapping with electricity certain nerves that innervate the face. Its like a marathon in which th...
If youve ever had a migraine headache, you dont need me to tell you it hurts. Doctors report that about twenty million people suffer from serious headaches, and ten percent of these have intractable painmeaning it doesnt go away. But heres a surprise...
There are many dung beetles competing for a limited amount of food at a dung pile, so when an individual is finished rolling a ball of dung it is in its best interest to make a quick escape. The fastest way to travel is in a straight path. Scientists...
Remember that kid in your grade school class who stuttered? Well, he was in good companya whopping three million people in the United States alone are affected by this problem. It isnt life threatening, but it certainly can be life hampering, as anyo...
Are aliens going to eat us? Signed, Frightened. Well, Frightened Thats more of a science fiction question. But science does have something to say you, and sometimes purely imaginative questions are great tools for helping us think about how the real...
With the age of electronics, it was found that hearing your own voice played back to you almost as soon as you speak helps a stutter as well. Thats called the Delayed Auditory Feedback effect. Altering the pitch of the playback gives an extra boost t...
You can see the planet Jupiter on a clear night, but Jupiter is humongous. Mars and Mercury are smaller than that, and you can see them, too. Wait a minute, our moon is even smaller, and you can see that. Could anything smaller than the moon be visib...
Vesta is quite far away. Like many asteroids, it has an orbit out between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Astronomers first spotted it when looking for a new planet they thought should exist between these two. As I said, Vesta is quite smallabout thr...
The remora benefits package is very attractive. First, as long as a remora is attached to a shark, whos going to give it any trouble? Next, sharks are very sloppy eaters, often leaving plenty of delectable morsels floating around. While the shark is...
The psychologists have found that people who believe in a just world are more likely to worship celebrities, whereas people more critical of society are less likely to obsess over a celebrity. People who strongly believe in a just world believe that...
Have you ever seen a cartoon of a sleeping opossum hanging upside down by its tail? Well, you may be surprised to learn that possums dont actually sleep that way. Just A Myth Although often depicted in cartoons as hanging from their tails, the muscle...
Glass Pits And Dirt Deposits Places that might harbor such tiny pockets of air include microscopic scratches and pits in the surface of a glass, and crevices along the edges of dirt deposits. Pour champagne or beer into a glass and youll see that bub...
Like kangaroos, possums are marsupials, and the females carry and nurse their young in pouches on their abdomens. The opossum, Didelphis virginiana, is the only marsupial native to North America. Playing Possum These solitary, nomadic omnivores are a...
