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Here's Where Your Backyard Was 300 Million Years Ago

We may use terms like "grounded" and terra firma to mean stability and consistency but geology...

Convergent Evolution Cheat Sheet Now 120 Million Years Old

One tenet of natural selection is a random walk of genes but nature may be more predictable than...

Synchrotron Could Shed Light On Exotic Dark Photons

There are many hypothetical particles proposed to explain dark matter and one idea to explore how...

The Pain Scale Is Broken But This May Fix It

Chronic pain is reported by over 20 percent of the global population but there is no scientific...

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Why are physicists thick-skinned but biologists run for the hills when the comment trolls invariably appear?  It may help to be arcane and complex - it's harder to troll hard sciences. Everyone feels like they know some biology but good luck to casual readers trying to debunk rare B_s decays in a high energy physics paper.

Researchers have discovered that many women with low-grade serous carcinoma of the ovary or peritoneum have seen their tumors stabilize or shrink after taking a regular dose of the compound selumetinib, according to a paper in The Lancet Oncology which show that selumetinib targets a mutation in the MAPK pathway for patients with low-grade serous carcinoma, allowing for treatment on previously chemoresistant tumors.

"This is a potentially important breakthrough for the Gynecologic Oncology Group," said first author John Farley, MD, a gynecologic oncologist at St. Joseph's Hospital.  

An animal model of recent human evolution found that a single mutation produced several traits common in East Asian people, from thicker hair to denser sweat glands. They also modeled the spread of the gene mutation across Asia and North America, concluding that it most likely arose about 30,925 years ago in what is today central China. 

Previous research identified the mutation as a strong candidate for positive selection. That is, evidence within the genetic code suggested the mutant gene conferred an evolutionary advantage, though what advantage was unclear.  

2012 was the 40th anniversary since President Richard Nixon signed the Clean Water Act and established regulations for the discharge of pollutants to waterways - and even lets the government declare water itself as a pollutant. 

Despite sewage treatment plants becoming more widespread, sewage can still be a major source for both naturally occurring hormones found in the environment and from both pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs).

Lulu, the iOS and Android app for reviewing and objectifying men, had a good first week, reaching the Top 20 in the U.S App. store with over 100,000 downloads. 

 On Lulu, girls anonymously ridicule and rate men on appearance, humor, manners, ambition, first kiss, sex, and commitment. So if you want to know if that guy you met has a #CleanBathroom or is #CheaperThanABigMac, this is for you. 

Like 75 percent of online gamers, it helps to at least pretend to be a woman. If you admit to being a man, or your Facebook login is a man, you get the rejection: "Dude, you're a dude." Perhaps due to keeping out icky men, so far people are being nice. The worst condemnation a man can get, though, is an ex-girlfriend saying he is a keeper...for someone else. 

Like the term 'junk DNA', the idea of 'primitive' reflexes is contextually confusing to some people outside biology. In reality, after millions of years of evolution, even a primitive reflex is sophisticated.