HS-LS1-2
Develop and use a model to illustrate the hierarchical organization of interacting systems that provide specific functions within multicellular organisms.
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Health & Medicine
Explainer: What is skin?
The body’s soft, outer armor contains three layers, each with its own important role to play.
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Fossils
Predatory dinos were truly big-mouths
Large meat-eating dinosaurs could open their mouths wide to grab big prey. Vegetarians would have had a more limited gape, a new study suggests.
By Sid Perkins -
Life
Scientists discover itch-busting cells
A study in mice finds the body has a special way of dealing with an itch that’s caused by a light touch. The results could lead to treatments for chronic itch.
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Chemistry
Some air pollutants seep through skin
The skin is the body’s largest organ. And it can let in as much or more of certain air pollutants than enter through the lungs, a new study finds.
By Janet Raloff -
Tech
New light on brain science
A combination of physics, biology and engineering lets scientists use light to trigger actions by specific brain cells. Called optogenetics, this technology is shining new light on how the brain works.
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Health & Medicine
These bubbles treat wounds
New research shows bubble-powered drugs can travel upstream, against the flow of blood, to seal wounds shut.
By Meghan Rosen -
Animals
Hummingbird tongues may be tiny pumps
Scientists had thought that hummingbird tongues work through capillary action. A new study, though, concludes they work like little pumps.
By Susan Milius and Sarah Zielinski -
Health & Medicine
New treatments may rally ex-president’s fight against cancer
Former President Jimmy Carter has a potentially lethal type of skin cancer that has already spread to his liver and brain. Recent improvements in medicine may help him fight it.
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Health & Medicine
Explainer: The nico-teen brain
Both e-cigarettes and tobacco products can release large amounts of nicotine during use. Nicotine is the chemical that makes tobacco addictive — and the teen brain is especially vulnerable to it.
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Animals
Picture This: The real ‘early bird’
Long before dinosaurs went extinct, birds were emerging on Earth. These hummingbird-size wading birds are the earliest known ancestors of today’s birds.
By Meghan Rosen -
Health & Medicine
Injected nanoparticles treat internal wounds
Soldiers wounded in a bombing could be treated with a shot of specially designed nanoparticles that stop bleeding and inflammation in the lungs.
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Microbes
New virus may have given kids polio-like symptoms
More than 100 U.S. children developed a paralyzing illness in 2014. Genetic evidence now suggests that the most likely culprit is a new form of a virus in the polio family.