Monarch butterflies migrate incredibly long distances, from the U.S. to Mexico, and scientists have long wondered how they navigate. Now they know the butterflies use the angle and intensity of sunlight to set their internal clock, giving them a precise sense of when it’s time to head South. And the generation that migrates lives much longer than the others.
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Tara Pepper writes in Newsweek that the secret of heart disease, and other deadly diseases, lies in the womb. U.K. researcher David Barker has discovered that some diseases actually start before we’re born. Harvard’s Nurses Health Study, which started in 1976 and surveyed 121,000 women, found a 23% increase in heart disease and 80% increase in diabetes among people with low birth weights. Another study found a 40% increase in severe kidney disease among adults who weighed less than 5 ? pounds at birth.
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Asteroid 1950 DA is heading our way and is due to hit the Earth on March 16, 2880. Since 70% of the Earth is covered with water, it will probably land in the ocean, causing huge tsunami waves to spread out from the impact and drown coastal areas. A computer simulation of an asteroid impact tsunami developed by California scientists shows waves as high as 400 feet sweeping onto the Atlantic Coast.
Researcher Steven Ward says, “From a geologic perspective, events like this have happened many times in the past. Asteroids the size of 1950 DA have probably struck the Earth about 600 times since the age of the dinosaurs.”
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Egyptian Saif al-Adel has become the new international leader of al-Qaeda and is reviving the terrorist organization with new methods and relationships with Islamic terrorist networks worldwide. He’s been granted safe haven in Iran, although he’s high on the FBI most-wanted list and has a $25 million price on his head. His authority comes directly from Osama bin-Laden’s son Saad.
Adel replaces Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was captured in Pakistan two months ago. Mohammed had the reputation of talking too much, which disrupted at least one planned al-Qaeda attack, but Adel has downsized the organization and instituted a policy of secrecy.
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