Geologists have a new tool to study how earthquakes change the landscape down to a few inches, and it's giving them insight into how earthquake faults behave. In the Feb. 10 issue of the journal Science, a team of scientists from the U.S., Mexico and China reports the most comprehensive before-and-after picture yet of an earthquake zone, using data from the magnitude 7.2 event that struck near Mexicali, northern Mexico in April, 2010.

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A new study has shown that boosting the estrogen levels of male garter snakes causes them to secrete the same pheromones that females use to attract suitors, and turned the males into just about the sexiest snake in the neighborhood -- attracting dozens of other males eager to mate.

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Whether or not you know any high school students that actually get nine hours of sleep each night, that's what U.S. federal guidelines currently prescribe.

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If there was a 'Just So' story for how the zebra got its stripes, I'm sure that Rudyard Kipling would have come up with an amusing and entertaining camouflage explanation. But would he have come up with the explanation that Gábor Horváth and colleagues from Hungary and Sweden have: that zebra's stripes stave off blood-sucking insects?

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Neuroscientists at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine have made a dramatic breakthrough in their efforts to find a cure for Alzheimer's disease. The researchers' findings, published in the journal Science, show that use of a drug in mice appears to quickly reverse the pathological, cognitive and memory deficits caused by the onset of Alzheimer's. The results point to the significant potential that the medication, bexarotene, has to help the roughly 5.4 million Americans suffering from the progressive brain disease.

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Weekday delivery is no better than night or weekend delivery for infants with birth defects, according to a new study recently presented at The Pregnancy Meeting, the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine's annual conference. The finding is good news for all parties -- moms, babies and healthcare teams -- and suggests that this high-risk population of women should deliver when their bodies are ready to deliver, regardless of the day or time.

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Older maternal and paternal age are jointly associated with having a child with autism, according to a recently published study led by researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth).

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Cochlear implants may be a safe, effective option for some organ transplant patients who've lost their hearing as an unfortunate consequence of their transplant-related drug regime, researchers report.

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Catalytic materials, which lower the energy barriers for chemical reactions, are used in everything from the commercial production of chemicals to catalytic converters in car engines. However, with current catalytic materials becoming increasingly expensive, scientists are exploring viable alternatives.

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The giant black hole at the center of the Milky Way may be vaporizing and devouring asteroids, which could explain the frequent flares observed, according to astronomers using data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory.

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