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Findings

This month’s scientific progress—good, bad, or simply strange.

Findings

Scientists turned white ibises gay by feeding them mercury, found that pale-skinned whales sunburn more easily, discovered a new bacterium in the rust of the Titanic, and confirmed the authenticity…

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Findings

The practice of black magic and the popularity of the Harry Potter franchise were both endangering India’s wild owls. American herpetologists traveled to a restaurant in Vietnam to examine a…

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Findings

Scientists were concerned about the lack of standardization for placebo ingredients, about the abundance of sugary sports drinks consumed by athletic children, about the increase in alcohol consumption that occurs…

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Findings

Researchers found that suicide rates drop after U.S. presidential elections in states that support the winning candidate, and that suicides drop even further in states that support the loser. It…

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Findings

It was found that Russians are more brooding than Americans, that air pollution may be causing Koreans to kill themselves, and that residual aquatic Prozac was encouraging shrimp to risk…

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Findings

Economic hardship in the United States was linked to an increase in abusive head trauma among children; a different study concluded that the winter holidays do not encourage Americans to…

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Findings

Antisocial behavior among boys was correlated with both precocious puberty and delayed puberty; badly behaved teenage girls were found to have a hard time discerning anger and disgust on other…

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Findings

Scientists performed surgery on the hoods of cobras to determine how ribs turned into hood bones and rib muscles turned into hooding muscles. A number of the snakes awoke from…

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Findings

Winter Paralympian paraplegics were suspected of having induced performance-boosting blood-pressure increases by breaking their bones, stopping up their bladders, and squashing their testicles. College students exposed to the letter A…

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Findings

Researchers established that American birth weights are declining, that the babies of Indian child brides are at greater risk for malnutrition, and that sharks born to virgin mothers—contrary to prior…

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Findings

Researchers suggested that children with more friends should be less fat, that earlier bedtimes may discourage adolescents from killing themselves, and that depression does not affect the odds of success…

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Findings

Management researchers in Michigan found that lawbreaking by American corporations tends to increase as companies grow more successful and prominent, and public-health researchers in Sweden reported that men who work…

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Findings

As the Arabian and African tectonic plates continued their rift, a new ocean was forming in the Ethiopian desert, and the Red Sea was being parted at 0.8 inches per…

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Findings

Researchers established that schizophrenics rarely kill strangers, that the apparent fearlessness of psychopaths comes from their being distracted rather than emotionless, and that strep throat does not cause obsessive-compulsive disorder…

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Findings

Among highly sociable stingless Brazilian bees, a quarter of males—who can develop from unfertilized eggs—were found to be the sons of workers and not of the queen; because worker bees…

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Findings

As honeybees continued to vanish from their hives, researchers supported by the National Honey Board pointed to pesticide accumulation in beeswax as a contributing factor in Colony Collapse Disorder. The…

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Findings

The U.S. military reported progress in its cyborg-insect program and in building robots that can power themselves by eating the bodies of those they kill; the developers have promised that…

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Findings

Scientists made graduate students provoke spitting cobras into attacking them, coordinated assaults on humans by mockingbirds, induced regret in monkeys, and tickled five young bonobos, four young chimpanzees, five young…

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Findings

Biophysicists at the Monell Chemical Senses Center discovered that red pandas can taste aspartame, neotame, and sucralose and will consume large amounts of these substances if given the chance; lions,…

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Findings

Baby pythons escaped aboard a 737, a farmer in Kenya bit a python who tried to eat him, and an Indonesian fisherman was killed by Komodo dragons when he attempted…

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Findings

The National Sleep Foundation warned that too many people were losing sleep over the worsening economy, which also may be causing a decline in shark attacks worldwide and an increase…

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Findings

Researchers discovered an “Obama effect”: African Americans’ performance on a verbal test improved, to equal that of white Americans, immediately after Obama’s nomination and his election. African-American parents were found…

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Findings

A British study found that London traders with relatively long ring fingers earn eleven times as much money as do men with short ring fingers, and a survey found that…

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Findings

A gay penguin couple in China’s Polar Land zoo were ostracized by other penguins and then placed in a separate enclosure after they made repeated attempts to steal the eggs…

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Findings

Studies found that obese women have as many sex part ners as non-obese women, that obese men have fewer sex partners than non-obese men, and that men will spend more…

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Findings

High testosterone levels were correlated with financial risk-taking in men, were found to make men prefer feminine women and make women prefer masculine men, and were induced in both men…

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Findings

Researchers found that 70 percent of voters who claim to be undecided have already made up their minds, estimated that genes are responsible for 53 percent of an eligible voter’s…

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April 2011

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