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Scientists are launching a three-pronged attack on one of the most obstinate puzzles in materials sciences: what is the pseudogap?They used three complementary experimental approaches to investigate a single material, the high-temperature superconductor Pb-Bi2201 (lead bismuth strontium lanthanum copper-oxide). Their results are the strongest evidence yet that the pseudogap phase, a mysterious electronic state peculiar to high-temperature superconductors, is not a gradual transition to superconductivity in these materials, as some have long believed.Instead, it is a distinct phase of matter.The pseudogap mystery

The Clovis people, Paleo-Indians whose tools were known for their distinctive 'fluted' points, were once thought to be the original settlers of North America about 13,000 years ago.    The name originates not from the 5th century Frankish king but rather the town in New Mexico where the stone projectile points created by their distinctive percussion and pressure flaking techniques were first discovered.

Losing virginity can improve your self-image,  according to Penn State researchers - if you are a college-age male.  On average, college-age males become more satisfied with their appearance after first intercourse while college-age females become less satisfied.Overall the researchers found that women became happier with their physical appearance from first to fourth year in college, and men became less satisfied with their appearance over the same time period. However, the researchers found the opposite directly after students had sex for the first time; males were more satisfied with their appearance and females were less satisfied.   

In Australia, babies born since 1971 have had drops of blood taken, which are then tested for a variety of genetic conditions such as cystic fibrosis. It has been an effective health check, according to Dr. Diana Bowman from the Melbourne School of Population Health, but because there are no laws which define the ownership, storage and use of those blood drops, it could threaten public trust in newborn screening (NBS) programs in Australia. The tests and what is done with the blood afterwards raises many legal questions.

Tree islands, patches of high, dry ground a meter high that dot the marshes of the Florida Everglades, are elevated enough to allow trees to grow and provide a nesting site for alligators and a refuge for birds, panthers, and other wildlife.And those critters may have anthropogenic garbage left by early man to thank for it.   Garbage mounds left by prehistoric humans might have driven the formation of many of those  Everglades' tree islands, distinctive havens of exceptional ecological richness in the sprawling marsh that are today threatened by human development.

Because of the time difference, many discovered the news of the Tohoku earthquake hours after the 9.0 magnitude tremor was recorded 81 miles off the Japanese East Coast - an earthquake so epic that the resulting tsunami reached across the Pacific and the coasts of America and New Zealand.   But also for much of the waking world, news about the unfolding crisis happened instantaneously - because of the amazing reach of social media. 

Infants and toddlers can suffer serious mental health disorders, yet are unlikely to receive treatment that could prevent lasting developmental problems, according to an analysis in  American Psychologist.

Language may have an undervalued role in learning the meanings of numbers.   A study based on research using deaf people in Nicaragua who never learned formal sign language showed that people who communicate using self-developed gestures (homesigns) were unable to comprehend the value of numbers greater than three because they had not learned a language containing symbols used for counting.

Recent research indicates that bilingual speakers can outperform monolinguals in certain mental abilities, such as editing out irrelevant information and focusing on important information, said Judith Kroll, Distinguished Professor of Psychology, Penn State. These skills make bilinguals better at prioritizing tasks and working on multiple projects at one time.  Kroll said that these findings counter previous conclusions that bilingualism hindered cognitive development.

While any individual action in a zero-tolerance culture will be evidence of endemic racism, the plain fact is actual racism is below any level in history and dropping fast.   That makes it possible to again discuss variations in skin color to provide one of the best examples of evolution by natural selection acting on the human body.Scientists have understood for years that evolutionary selection of skin pigmentation was caused by the sun. As human ancestors gradually lost their pelts to allow evaporative cooling through sweating, their naked skin was directly exposed to sunlight. In the tropics, natural selection created darkly pigmented individuals to protect against the sun.

What do the Ansei-Nankai and Ansei-Tokai earthquakes of 1854 have in common with the 1944-1946 Tononkai and Nankai earthquakes in Japan?   They each suffered massive aftershocks shortly thereafter.    The Ansei-Nankai and Ansei-Tokai earthquakes were 8.4 magnitude and only 31 hours apart.  Worse, the aftershocks were nearly as bad.And the same scenario could apply this time, says UC Davis seismologist John Rundle, and Tokyo is at the most risk.  Friday's magnitude 9.0 temblor has been followed by hundreds of

Researchers say they have ruled  the cosmic bubble theory, an alternate theory on the nature of dark energy, after recalculating the expansion rate of the universe to unprecedented accuracy.The universe appears to be expanding at an increasing rate and some believe that is because the universe is filled with a dark energy that works in the opposite way of gravity. One alternative to that hypothesis is that an enormous bubble of relatively empty space eight billion light-years across surrounds our galactic neighborhood. If we lived near the center of this void, observations of galaxies being pushed away from each other at accelerating speeds would be an illusion.