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X-ray Emissions From Comets

The X-ray emission from comets is produced by high-energy particles, but the high-energy particles come not from the comet but from the sun. Matter is continually evaporating from the solar corona in a flow called the solar wind. The solar wind is composed of ions of hydrogen, helium and small percentages of heavier elements such as carbon, ...

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Chemistry

Uses Of Hydrocarbons

The hydrocarbons are the most broadly used organic compounds known, and are quite literally the driving force of western civilization. The greatest amounts of hydrocarbons are used as fuel for ... Continue reading

UsesOfHydrocarbons
Biology

How Biological Clocks Work

Anyone who has traveled has experienced jet lag—that groggy realization that while your day is beginning in Washington, DC, the night you just left in San Francisco is hardly over. Jet lag is an ... Continue reading

HowBiologicalClocksWork
Astronomy

It's Dusty Out There

There is no lower limit to the size of the solid particles that move around the Sun. Small asteroids grade downward into large meteoroids and then into smaller pebbles and so on down to the tiniest ... Continue reading

ItsDustyOutThere
Biology

Why Are Zebra Mussels Successful As Invaders?

The zebra mussel (Dreissena polymorpha) is a small, non-native mussel originally found in Russia. In 1988, this animal was transported to North America in the ballast water of a transatlantic ... Continue reading

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Hey Nose-Brain!

NoseBrainSex, food, and smell are linked in our brain by ancient pathways governing appetite, odor detection, and hormones. In fact, another name for the brain's limbic system (a primitive brain-within-the-brain responsible for emotional urges, hormone levels, and unconscious bodily functions such as blood pressure and appetite) is rhinencephalon, or 'nose-brain.'

Why nose-brain? Because the limbic system is believed to have developed out of an even more primitive odor-processing brain system that operated when our distant ancestors were swimming through the primordial ooze many millions of years ago. No matter how sophisticated we humans think we've become, smells still have the power to trigger our emotions, make us hungry, or even make us like or dislike another person.

There are people who have lost their sense of smell due to illness or injury, a condition called anosmia. Often, anosmics retain little of their former interest in food, and experience little enjoyment of it when they do eat. About a quarter of anosmics lose not only their appetite for food, but their appetite for sex as well.