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Pilot Study: Fibromyalgia Fatigue Improved By TENS Therapy

Fibromyalgia is the term for a poorly-understood condition where people experience pain and fatigue...

High Meat Consumption Linked To Lower Dementia Risk

Older people who eat large amounts of meat have a lower risk of dementia and cognitive decline...

Long Before The Inca Colonized Peru, Natives Had A Thriving Trade Network

A new DNA analysis reveals that long before the Incan Empire took over Peru, animals were...

Mesolithic People Had Meals With More Tradition Than You Thought

The common imagery of prehistoric people is either rooting through dirt for grubs and picking berries...

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The Fonz Of Cosmology: Ultra-Cool Companion Gets Planets Noticed Too

The Fonz Of Cosmology: Ultra-Cool Companion Gets Planets Noticed Too

May 18 2012 | comment(s)

Giant planets have diverse chemistry; Jupiter, for example, first formed as a large solid core and then then accreted gas from the disk around it, which led to a different chemistry in its outer layers. When the Galileo spacecraft entered Jupiter’s atmosphere in 1995, it found the proportion of heavier elements (astronomers call these ‘metals’) to be three times higher than in the Sun.

Brown dwarfs, around the same size, are instead star-like objects with insufficient mass to ignite hydrogen fusion in their cores. Over time they cool to temperatures of just a few hundred degrees. Like stars, they formed from the collapse of a giant molecular cloud a few hundred light years across.
Polar Bears Genetic Ancestry Traced Back 600,000 Years

Polar Bears Genetic Ancestry Traced Back 600,000 Years

May 17 2012 | comment(s)

Polar bears are evolutionarily older and genetically more distinct than believed. This largest Arctic carnivore evolved as early as 600,000 years ago, five times older than previously recognized. 
Maybe Volcanoes Are A Girl's Best Friend

Maybe Volcanoes Are A Girl's Best Friend

May 17 2012 | comment(s)

What do diamonds and chocolate have in common?  Well, urban legend says girls love them both.  Maybe we can add volcanoes if we are using correlational woo.

A previously unrecognized volcanic process similar to one used in chocolate manufacturing is important in the dynamics of volcanic eruptions. 'Fluidised spray granulation'  is a type of gas injection and spraying process used to form smooth coatings on confectionaries but it can also occur during kimberlite eruptions to produce well-rounded particles containing fragments from the Earth's mantle - most notably diamonds. 
Rhine River - Now With 5 Million More Years!

Rhine River - Now With 5 Million More Years!

May 16 2012 | comment(s)

Based on new fossil evidence, the age of the Rhine river is five million years older than previously believed.

The famous Rhine of song and legend flows through Switzerland, Austria, Germany and the Netherlands on its way to the North Sea. The catchment area of the Rhine, around 1,200 kilometers of it, draws from Luxembourg, Belgium, France, Lichtenstein and Italy. As widely known as the river is, its original age has remained a science puzzle.
Meat And Masculinity: Vegetarians Have An Uphill Perception Battle

Meat And Masculinity: Vegetarians Have An Uphill Perception Battle

May 16 2012 | comment(s)

Men are generally more reluctant to try vegetarian products and a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research says that is influenced by a strong association of meat with masculinity.
 
"We examined whether people in Western cultures have a metaphoric link between meat and men" write the authors.  And they concluded there was a strong cultural connection to meat - especially muscle meat, like steak. 

Evolutionary psychologists would likely disagree, as do unbiased dietary scientists.
False Positives: Genes Have No Meaningful Relationship To Economic Decisions And Political Attitudes

False Positives: Genes Have No Meaningful Relationship To Economic Decisions And Political Attitudes

May 16 2012 | comment(s)

Around election season, in whatever country you are in (assuming you have elections) you can tell True Believers in their earnest politics truly wish the other side could be labeled as having defective brains and genetics and therefore be cured - or at least sterilized.