A Blog Around The Clock

Life Expectancy Worsening Or Stagnating For Large Segment Of U.S. Population:

One of the major aims of the U.S. health system is improving the health of all people, particularly those segments of the population at greater risk of health disparities. In fact, overall life expectancy in the U.S. increased more than seven years for men and more than six years for women between 1960 and 2000. Now, a new, long-term study of mortality trends in U.S. counties over the same four decades reports a troubling finding: These gains are not reaching many parts of the country; rather, the life expectancy of a significant segment of the population is declining or at best stagnating.

Shell-breaking Crabs Lived 20 Million Years Earlier Than Thought:

While waiting for colleagues at a small natural history museum in the state of Chiapas, Mexico last year, Cornell paleontologist Greg Dietl chanced upon a discovery that has helped rewrite the evolutionary history of crabs and the shelled mollusks upon which they preyed.

Birds Announce Their Sentry Duty To Help Comrades Get A Good Meal:

Soldiers on sentry duty in hostile territory keep in regular radio contact with their colleagues to assure them that all is well and that they are safe to carry on their manoeuvres. New research reveals that this is also a feature of the bird world and is very likely to be a rare example of truly cooperative behaviour.

Variety Is The Spice Of Life: Too Many Males, Too Little Time...:

Female Australian painted dragon lizards are polyandrous, that is, they mate with as many males as they can safely get access to. This promiscuous behaviour is often found in species where male quality is dubious and there are high levels of infertility in the male population.

Building A Global Reference Library Of DNA Barcodes Of Marine Life:

Most of us are familiar with bar codes, those small black stripes with numbers below, known as the Universal Product Code or UPC label, that appear on commercial products. We scan them at the grocery store or to check a price, or have to cut them out and send them in for a rebate.