ScienceDaily: Top Science News

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• Sunbathing helps these bugs stay healthy
• Most mutations come from dad: New insights into age, height and sex reshape views of human evolution
• Flat lens offers a perfect image
• Mars surface data: ChemCam laser first analyses yield beautiful results

Sunbathing helps these bugs stay healthy Posted: 24 Aug 2012 12:02 PM PDT Sunbathing may be healthy -- at least for one group of North American insects, the Western boxelder bug -- that apparently uses the activity to fight off germs. The bugs are known to group together in sunlit patches and release monoterpenes, strong-smelling chemical compounds that help protect the bugs by killing germs on their bodies.

Most mutations come from dad: New insights into age, height and sex reshape views of human evolution Posted: 24 Aug 2012 07:30 AM PDT Humans inherit more than three times as many mutations from their fathers as from their mothers, and mutation rates increase with the father's age but not the mother's, researchers have found in the largest study of human genetic mutations to date.

Flat lens offers a perfect image Posted: 24 Aug 2012 06:35 AM PDT Applied physicists have created an ultrathin, flat lens that focuses light without imparting the distortions of conventional lenses. It operates at telecom wavelengths -- i.e., those used for fiber-optics -- and is scalable to a wider range.

Mars surface data: ChemCam laser first analyses yield beautiful results Posted: 24 Aug 2012 06:35 AM PDT Scientists squeezed in a little extra target practice after zapping the first fist-sized rock that was placed in the laser's crosshairs last weekend. Much to the delight of the scientific team, the laser instrument has fired nearly 500 shots so far that have produced strong, clear data about the composition of the Martian surface.

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