As somebody who is part of the executive branch and serving in this role which I can consider to be a great privilege, as director of NIH, I am confident that the convictions that are held by many Americans and by most members of the Congress, that b

发表于:2018-12-24 / 阅读(185) / 评论(0)

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科学美国人60秒 SSS Police Body Cameras Appear to Moderate Interactions with Civilians

The last few years have seen numerous widely publicized incidents of civilians, black men in particular, being killed by police. In response, many officers are now required to wear body cameras. The theory is that technology will lessen the likelihoo

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科学美国人60秒 SSS DNA Samples Find a Lot of Fish in the Sea

The way we sample much of the world's oceans, to see what's living down there, is pretty basic: Ask fishermen. Or just stick a net down there, and examine what we catch. Neither method is ideal. Because you basically catch the fish and kill them. Phi

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科学美国人60秒 SSS Forest Die-Offs Alter Global Climate 'Like El Nino'

Climate change may be partly to blame for the massive die-off of pine trees in the western U.S. But it works the other way, too: forest die-offs can alter the global climate. I like thinking of this as a parallel to something like El Nino. Abigail Sw

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科学美国人60秒 SSS High Fiber Diet Keeps Intestinal Walls Intact

Your nose may be the first place you think of as a source of mucus. But mucus is a major player in your gut, too. There's antimicrobial peptides and proteins that are present in there. Bacteria live in there and forage on the carbohydrates. And it's

发表于:2018-12-24 / 阅读(163) / 评论(0)

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科学美国人60秒 SSS We Now Live in the Unnatural World

The Unnatural World is the title of a new book by former Scientific American environment editor David Biello. The subtitle: The Race to Remake Civilization in Earths Newest Age. And that age has been dubbed the Anthropocenein which humanity (anthro)

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科学美国人60秒 SSS Toll-Free Number Stems Human–Wildlife Conflicts

I have now worked in seven states across India, and weve looked at human-wildlife interactions, particularly human-wildlife conflict ranging from crop loss, livestock predation, human death, human injury and property damage. Krithi Karanth, a Wildlif

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科学美国人60秒 SSS Flowers Deceive Flies with Chemical Cocktail

Honeybee stings are painful. But they're also fragrant. If a beekeeper gets stung by bees, it smells like banana. Dr. Stefan D?tterl, a plant ecologist at the University of Salzburg in Austria. That banana scent, he says, is a compound called isoamyl

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科学美国人60秒 SSS Polar Bears Can't Just Switch to Terrestrial Food

When the Arctic Ocean freezes over in the autumn, polar bears set off in search of their favorite meals: fatty ringed seals and bearded seals. By the summer, the sea ice begins to melt and break apart. Deprived of access to the tasty seals, polar bea

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科学美国人60秒 SSS Big Earthquakes May Be More Likely During New and Full Moons

Every two weeks, on the full and new moons, the sun, moon and Earth fall along a nearly straight line. The combination of gravitational forces in this arrangement creates large swings in the tides. But the celestial alignment affects more than the oc

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科学美国人60秒 SSS Oldest Known Indigo Dye Found in Peru

Many people remember the colors of the rainbow by the acronym ROY G. BIV. For red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. Well, the color indigo just made news. Indigo gets its name from the plant Indigofera tinctoria and its relatives, whic

发表于:2018-12-24 / 阅读(209) / 评论(0)

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科学美国人60秒 SSS Road Noise Makes Birds' Lives Tougher

[Songbird and traffic noise] It's hard to be a bird in our human-dominated world. You can barely hear yourself sing, let along hear the songs of your friends and you can forget about hearing a predator. Noise is almost everywhere. Especially noise fr

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科学美国人60秒 SSS World Wilderness Down 10 Percent in 20 Years

Only about 23 percent of the worlds land area is still what youd call wildernesswhere indigenous people, wildlife, plants and microbes get a chance to live with little or no disturbance from large human populations. But even that current figure of 23

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科学美国人60秒 SSS Bookish Mobsters Made Better Bookies

Turns out, education pays off. Thats true whether youre a doctor or a lawyeror even a mobster, according to a new study. Researchers compared the FBI files of more than seven hundred Italian-American mafia men from the '30s to the '40s to other nonmo

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科学美国人60秒 SSS For River Otters, Social Life Is Shaped by the Latrine

River otters, like other social animals, have to carefully weigh the costs and benefits of hanging out in large groups. A big group makes it easier to catch fish, which seems like a good deal, but there's a downside to social life too. More otters me

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科学美国人60秒 SSS Falcons Patrol Fruit Fields for Pesky Invasive Birds

Washington state is the countrys largest producer of cherries and blueberries. The states wine industry is second only to Californias in value. But one non-native, nuisance bird is wreaking havoc. [Sound of starling call.] The European starling was b

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科学美国人60秒 SSS Clark Kent's Glasses Aided His Anonymity

Ever wonder how the citizens of Metropolis somehow could not recognize Clark Kent once he ditched the glasses and became Superman? Well, now theres an actual scientific explanation: When a person alters their appearance, even in small ways like addin

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科学美国人60秒 SSS Poor Sleepers Worse at Recognizing Unfamiliar Faces

Standing in line at passport control isn't the most relaxing experience. The officer looks at your passport at you back at your passport back at you. Kind of nerve wracking. But put yourself in their shoes. They're trying to figure out if your face i

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科学美国人60秒 SSS Drunk People Feel Soberer around Heavy Drinkers

Volunteers in scientific studies sometimes get compensated. The payment can be cash, a gift card or something almost worthless: Its amazing what people will do for a lollipop, when they've had a few drinks. Simon Moore is a professor of public health

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科学美国人60秒 SSS Yawns Help the Brain Keep Its Cool

Not many scientific studies begin like this: Many hours of watching YouTube clips. Trying to find as many yawns as possible. But for Andrew Gallup, an evolutionary psychologist who studies yawning at the State University of New York, it was all in a

发表于:2018-12-24 / 阅读(174) / 评论(0)

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