Discovery News

Pollution Trips Up Female Marathon Runners

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October 30, 2009 -- Female marathon runners take heed: If you want to run your best race, you'd be advised to look at pollution levels before you choose your course.

Higher levels of coarse particle pollution appear to slow marathon times for women, according to research presented today by Linsey Marr of Virginia Tech.

Marr and colleague Matthew Ely of the U.S. Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine considered marathon times in seven cities -- Boston, New York, Chicago, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Sacramento, Los Angeles and Duluth, Minn. -- over the years 1980 to 2007.

As Bats Begin Hibernation, Deaths Expected

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Oct. 30, 2009 -- It won't be long before millions of bats settle into caves and mines across the country to hibernate. But the sad truth is that many in the East will never see the warmth of spring.

More than a million bats have died so far from white-nose syndrome, a still-mysterious bat killer that has spread throughout the Northeast and into Virginia and West Virginia, since it was first detected in New York in 2006.

Experts will be waiting to see how far the syndrome advances this winter. They fear it may make it into Kentucky and Indiana, where most endangered Indiana bats live in fewer than 10 caves or mines.

Superstitious Beliefs Cemented Before Birth

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Oct. 30, 2009 -- The propensity to believe in paranormal phenomena and superstitions appears to arise in the womb, suggests new research.

The findings, published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences, further indicate that a reduced ability for analytical thinking may correspond with increased intuitive thinking, which has been associated with a belief in extrasensory perception (ESP), ghosts, telepathy and other paranormal phenomena.

Author Martin Voracek claims his new study's determinations "suggest (there are) biologically based, prenatally programmed influences on paranormal and superstitious beliefs."

Gang Assaults: Why They Happen

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Oct. 30, 2009 -- It's easy to dismiss something shocking and horrific as a random act of brutality.

But when a 15 year-old girl was gang raped last Saturday behind a high school in Richmond, Calif., it was an extreme example of behavior that is all too common, according to some experts' chilling research.

Around 9 pm that evening, a teenager left her homecoming dance at Richmond High School. Friends assumed she was heading home early. It wasn't until nearly midnight, after she had been repeatedly raped and beaten for over two hours that she was discovered, bloodied and unconscious, under a bench on school grounds.

Fast Runners Have Shorter Heels, Longer Toes

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Oct. 30, 2009 -- Plenty of people run, but only some have the ability to fly like the wind.

A new study helps to explain what separates the fleet-footed from the heavy-footed: ankle structure and toe length.

While these aren't the only features that make sprinters fast, subtleties in anatomy might help coaches determine whether to steer young runners towards distance or short races. The insights could also lead to faster sprinting shoes and even help people stay mobile into old age.

Former Waffen SS member on trial

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An 88-year-old Dutch man accused of killing three Dutch civilians during the Second World War has been put on trial in Germany.

Heinrich Boere, who was part of Hitler's Waffen SS death squad, has avoided being imprisoned for six decades - first by escaping a prisoner of war camp in the Netherlands, and later by eluding German courts.

Boere is on trial at the state court in Aachen for the murder of three men - a bicycle shop owner, a pharmacist and another civilian - and has admitted to shooting them down.

NASA to Start Irradiating Monkeys

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Oct. 29, 2009 -- NASA is stepping up its space radiation studies with a round of experiments that for the first time in decades will use monkeys as subjects.

The point of the experiments is to understand how the harsh radioactive environment of space affects human bodies and behavior and what countermeasures can be developed to make long-duration spaceflight safe for travelers beyond Earth's protective magnetic shield.

For the new study, 18 to 28 squirrel monkeys will be exposed to a low dose of the type of radiation that astronauts traveling to Mars can expect to encounter.

NASA's Ares Flies; Commercial Falcon Follows

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Oct. 29, 2009 -- Following NASA's successful test flight of its new Ares rocket, a commercial company will attempt to demonstrate it too has the right stuff to launch astronauts into orbit.

Just down the road from where NASA's Ares I-X demo rocket blasted off is a new launch complex built by California-based Space Exploration Technologies, which is preparing for the debut flight of its Falcon 9 rocket.

The company this month test-fired the cluster of nine engines needed to power the Falcon's flight and plans to ship the rocket to Cape Canaveral in November. Launch is targeted for early next year.

Hungry Bats Prompt Firefly Flashes

animals

Oct. 29, 2009 -- Flashing neon diner signs often attract the attention of famished human drivers at night, but in the wild, the message sent by flashing fireflies is more like "eat me and die."

Fireflies are often toxic to bats, which see the nighttime flashing and steer clear of the insects, according to a new study accepted for publication in the journal Animal Behavior.

The research presents some of the first evidence that fireflies flash not only for courtship, but also to deter would-be predators.

Exploding Star Sets Distance Record

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Oct. 29, 2009 -- It took 13 billion years to reach Earth, but astronomers have seen the light of an exploding mega-star that is the most distant object ever detected, two studies published Thursday reported.

The stunning gamma-ray burst (GRB) was observed by two teams of researchers in April, and opens a window onto a poorly known period when the universe was in its infancy.

GRBs are the most violent explosions known to exist, and can be 10 million times more luminous than the brightest of galaxies.