Hacker News
- Duke U challenges students to improve Duke life using tech. $5000 in rewards. http://today.duke.edu/2013/02/colab 3 comments
- North Carolina Lake Sediments Show Decades of Coal Ash Contamination: An analysis of sediments from five North Carolina lakes near coal-burning power plants has found that coal ash pollution of surface waters has been more persistent and widespread than was previously known. https://today.duke.edu/2022/09/north-carolina-lake-sediments-show-decades-coal-ash-contamination 57 comments science
- Electricity-generating rooftop solar cells not only save on planet-warming carbon emissions, they also save a significant amount of water, researchers report https://today.duke.edu/2022/09/rooftop-solar-cells-can-be-boon-water-conservation-too 29 comments science
- Environmental and housing stress rewires the brains of developing male mice, which may explain similar findings in humans https://today.duke.edu/2022/08/air-pollution-and-stress-alter-brains-and-social-behavior-male-mice 3 comments science
- Your Gut Senses the Difference Between Real Sugar and Artificial Sweetener: Many people struggle with sugar cravings, and now we have a better understanding of how the gut senses sugars and why artificial sweeteners don’t curb those cravings https://today.duke.edu/2022/01/your-gut-senses-difference-between-real-sugar-and-artificial-sweetener 39 comments science
- Metabolism Changes With Age - Earlier than previously thouggt https://today.duke.edu/2021/08/metabolism-changes-age-just-not-when-you-might-think 4 comments science
- Humans evolved to be the water-saving ape - New study suggests humans evolved to run on 30% to 50% less water than our closest primate relatives, enabling our hunter-gatherer ancestors to venture farther from water in search of food, especially in dry, savannah landscapes. https://today.duke.edu/2021/03/humans-evolved-be-water-saving-ape 694 comments science
- When their manhood is threatened, some men respond aggressively, but not all. New research suggests who may be most triggered by such threats – younger men whose sense of masculinity depends heavily on other people’s opinions. Men whose sense of masculinity came from within seemed unruffled. https://today.duke.edu/2021/01/be-man-why-some-men-respond-aggressively-threats-manhood 2 comments science
- Childhood lead exposure leads to structural changes in middle age brains. For each 5 micrograms per deciliter more lead they carried as children, the study participants lost an average of 2 IQ points by age 45. Findings come from a long-term study of more than 1,000 people https://today.duke.edu/2020/11/childhood-lead-exposure-leads-structural-changes-middle-aged-brains 8 comments science
- Scientists identified a number of 'silent' mutations in the roughly 30,000 letters of the COVID-19 virus's genetic code that helped it thrive once it made the leap from bats and other wildlife to humans -- and possibly helped set the stage for the global pandemic. https://today.duke.edu/2020/10/silent-mutations-gave-coronavirus-evolutionary-edge 29 comments science
- 'Silent' mutations gave the coronavirus an evolutionary edge: RNA folding may help explain how the coronavirus became so hard to stop after it spilled over from wildlife to humans https://today.duke.edu/2020/10/silent-mutations-gave-coronavirus-evolutionary-edge 4 comments worldnews
- A duke study on the 2017 Astros and the Sign Stealing. https://today.duke.edu/2020/07/did-cheating-actually-help-houston-astros-win-world-series 27 comments baseball
- Study finds area of amygdala in mouse brain that controls the sense of pain, turning the pain off, not on. The amygdala is often considered the home of negative emotions and responses, like the fight or flight response and general anxiety. It is not usually thought of as an anti-pain center. https://today.duke.edu/2020/05/neurobiologist-finds-potent-pain-suppression-center-brain 6 comments science
- Chronic exposure to microplastic fibers causes aneurysms, erosion of surface layers and other serious damage to fish gills, and it increases egg production. https://today.duke.edu/2020/03/microplastic-fibers-linked-respiratory-reproductive-changes-fish 45 comments science
- Male sparrows are less intimidated by the songs of aging rivals. Wild male swamp sparrows respond more aggressively to songs from 2-year-old males as compared with songs from the same males when they are 10 years old. https://today.duke.edu/2020/01/male-sparrows-are-less-intimidated-songs-aging-rivals 31 comments science
- New study shows that plants owe their rainbow of fruit colors to the different animals that eat them https://today.duke.edu/2018/09/how-fruits-got-their-eye-catching-colors 4 comments science
- Eyes have natural night vision https://today.duke.edu/2018/09/eyes-have-natural-version-night-vision 3 comments science
- Biomedical engineers have discovered an unlikely potential ally in the global fight against tuberculosis -- an FDA-approved drug originally designed to treat cancer. https://today.duke.edu/2018/04/cancer-drug-helps-treat-tuberculosis 3 comments science
- Women Survive Crises Better Than Men. Analysis of three centuries of historical data showed women are more likely than men to survive famines and epidemics. Their advantage is earned early, female newborns were more likely to survive trying circumstances. https://today.duke.edu/2018/01/women-survive-crises-better-men 48 comments science
- Negative portrayal of a shooting victim can lead people to blame the victim for his own death and to sympathize with the shooter. After reading a negative biographical sketch about the victim of a fatal shooting, study participants favored lighter sentences for the shooter. https://today.duke.edu/2017/12/negative-portrayals-shooting-victims-lead-victim-blaming 26 comments science
- Study in mice suggests variants in a gene carried by millions of people could cause weight gain. The variation causes fat cells to suck up glucose faster than normal, more than doubling their size. When added with an aging metabolism or a high-fat diet, obesity becomes all but inevitable. https://today.duke.edu/2017/11/gene-prompts-cells-store-fat-fueling-obesity 12 comments science
- New research suggests that variants in a gene carried by millions of Americans could cause people to put on pounds through no fault of their own. The study in mice shows that the gene variation causes fat cells to suck up glucose faster than normal, more than doubling their size. https://www.today.duke.edu/2017/11/gene-prompts-cells-store-fat-fueling-obesity 6 comments science
- Meerkats produce a pungent "paste" in a pouch beneath their tails, created by odor-producing bacteria, that they smear on plants, rocks and even other meerkats to mark their turf. With one whiff they can tell if a scent belongs to a relative, a rival or a potential mate. https://today.duke.edu/2017/06/microbes-give-meerkat-gangs-their-signature-scents 4 comments science
- Intellectual Humility increases tolerance, improves decision-making https://today.duke.edu/2017/03/modest-personality-trait-intellectual-humility-packs-punch 20 comments science
- Scarcity drives some baboon males to attack and kill infants of their own kind. The behavior reduces their waiting time to breed with pregnant and nursing females, who otherwise wouldn’t become sexually available again for up to a year. https://today.duke.edu/2017/01/why-baboon-males-resort-domestic-violence 3 comments science
- Chimpanzees seek out genetically different mates. Researchers aren't sure how chimps make the distinction; their best guess is the apes use appearance, smell or sound to make an educated guess. https://today.duke.edu/2017/01/genetic-opposites-attract-when-chimpanzees-choose-mate 3 comments science
- Nanowire “Inks” Enable Paper-Based Printable Electronics https://today.duke.edu/2017/01/nanowire-inks-enable-paper-based-printable-electronics 8 comments science
- Oxytocin Enhances Spirituality, New Study Says https://today.duke.edu/2016/09/oxytocin-enhances-spirituality-new-study-says 12 comments science
- Black Widows' color scheme deters their predators (birds) without alarming their prey (insects) http://today.duke.edu/2016/02/blackwidows 3 comments science
- The human version of a DNA sequence called HARE5 turns on a gene important for brain development, and causes a mouse embryo to grow a 12 percent larger brain by the end of pregnancy than an embryo injected with the chimpanzee version of HARE5 http://today.duke.edu/2015/02/bigbrain 14 comments science
- Duke study sheds light on why conservatives, liberals disagree so vehemently http://today.duke.edu/2014/11/solutionaversion 22 comments politics
- Editing HPV's Genes To Kill Cervical Cancer Cells: Researchers have hijacked a defense system normally used by bacteria to fend off viral infections and redirected it against the human papillomavirus (HPV), the virus that causes cervical, head and neck, and other cancers http://today.duke.edu/2014/08/crisprhpv 2 comments science
- Strict Diet Suspends Development, Doubles Lifespan of Worms: The centuries-long search for the fountain of youth has yielded only a few promising leads, one of which entails an extreme, emaciating diet http://today.duke.edu/2014/06/wormlifespan 3 comments science
- For many new moms, grandma is no cure for the baby blues: Married and single mothers suffer higher rates of depression when they live with grandparents http://today.duke.edu/2014/04/depressmom 3 comments science
- No Two People Smell the Same: With nearly a million variations on 400 smell receptors, everyone senses smell differently http://today.duke.edu/2013/12/hiroodor 16 comments science
- Screeners miss the really rare stuff: A smartphone app that turns gamers into airport baggage screeners is showing that finding weapons and other illegal items isn't all that easy, even when you're looking for them. http://today.duke.edu/2013/12/mitroffiphone 10 comments science
- more than 1/2 of teen mental health disorders go undiagnosed & untreated, w/phobias & anxiety disorders least likely to be treated http://today.duke.edu/2013/11/costello 5 comments science
- Scientists have found that the male song sparrows that sang the most songs learned to solve food-finding puzzles more slowly than the birds singing fewer songs; thus, a larger song repertoire links to cognitive deficits in other mental processes http://today.duke.edu/2013/05/birdbraintrades 29 comments science
- "Juries formed from all-white jury pools in Florida convicted black defendants 16 percent more often than white defendants, a gap that was nearly eliminated when at least one member of the jury pool was black, according to a Duke University-led study." http://today.duke.edu/2012/04/jurystudy 18 comments law
- TIL that exercise is a better antidepressant than Zoloft and other leading antidepressant drugs. http://today.duke.edu/2000/09/exercise922.html 18 comments reddit.com