Stories by Sophie Bushwick

Without female data, everything from safety gear to urban design to Siri is biased toward men. The effects range from inconvenient to deadly

Engineered microorganisms churn out THC, CBD and rarer, less-understood cannabis cousins

The scent of human men stresses out mice and rats, which changes their pain responses and could affect experimental results. Sophie Bushwick reports

 

The source of the mysterious so-called "bio-duck" sounds in the Southern Ocean is finally revealed by researchers engaged in minke business. Sophie Bushwick reports

 

Cougars survived the late Pleistocene extinction when other North American big cats became extinct,  thanks to their more flexible feeding habits. Sophie Bushwick reports
 

Exposure to bright light in the morning appears linked to reduced appetite and lower body weight, regardless of sleep patterns. Sophie Bushwick reports

 

After prolonged periods in microgravity, astronauts' hearts became more spherical, according to scans done on the International Space Station. Sophie Bushwick reports 

 

Master artists' sunset colors are good sources of information about amounts of particulates in the atmosphere when the image was painted. Sophie Bushwick reports

 

Long dormant moss has been extracted from the Antarctic permafrost, thawed out and revived. Sophie Bushwick reports

 

Developing a hangover doesn't prevent or even significantly delay the next drinking bout. Sophie Bushwick reports 

 

Tests for bacteria found that stethoscopes picked up more microbes from patients than did most parts of the doc's hands. Sophie Bushwick reports 

Brain scans of musicians as they improvised in a musical dialogue with another player showed that the improvisers used regions involved in syntax during production of language. Sophie Bushwick reports 

Functional MRI brain scans show that man and man's best friend use analogous brain regions to process vocalizations of both their own and the other species. Sophie Bushwick reports

Mice kept in total darkness for a week saw their hearing improve. Well, they heard their hearing improve. Sophie Bushwick reports

 

The song of the túngara frog creates ripples in the surrounding water, which attracts unwanted attention from predatory bats and rival males. Sophie Bushwick reports


 

When turkeys get riled up, their skin can change color because of alterations in the arrangement of connective tissue. Researchers created a chemical sensor made of viruses based on the same principle

 

On at least one Catalonian beach, tourists remove so many shells as to endanger the beach ecosystem

 

People who drank vodka with a diet mixer had breath alcohol levels 18 percent higher than when they drank alcohol with full-calorie soda. Sophie Bushwick reports

Gorilla Glass's residual stress can be explained by observing how the motion of individual atoms affects the entire system of the material

Plasma flows like a liquid but has the consistency of ketchup on a small scale. This new insight could help researchers better model the motion of blood in the human body

Until the age of eight, kids are little better than jays at solving a common puzzle

Is a magnetic signal in water-treated graphite powder a sign of room-temperature superconductivity or a false alarm?

At Lehman College, 3-D printing creates fossil replicas, extra-large versions, reconstructions and even primate skulls that never entered the fossil record