Excavations in China yield surprising finds of 800,000-year-old stone hand axes. (p. 148)

A new analysis of temperature records indicates that global warming may be picking up its pace. (p. 148)

A vaccine composed of tumor cells fused to immune cells has helped several people survive advanced kidney cancer. (p. 149)

Biodegradable polymer foams made with a new technique can act as scaffolds for regenerating tissues that may someday be used as replacement body parts. (p. 149)

Specially designed antibodies can thwart Ebola virus in mice by binding to a glycoprotein on the surface of virus-infected cells, suggesting a potential treatment for the lethal disease. (p. 150)

The first field test of a strategy for controlling insect resistance in a crop engineered to carry genes from the pesticide-producing bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis confirms the value of refuges in which some insects live without pesticide exposure. (p. 150)

A puzzling and unexpected response to magnetic fields suggests that certain glasses may exhibit a type of large-scale quantum mechanical behavior never seen before. (p. 151)

Some streams of gas and dust ripped out of large galaxies appear to form their own galaxies and may provide astronomers with a close-up view of galaxy formation. (p. 151)

From sifting through radio telescope signals for signs of extraterrestrial life to searching for record-breaking prime numbers, home and office computers contribute via the Internet to a variety of research efforts. (p. 152)

Outfitted with a mirror that flexes several hundred times a second to compensate for the blurring induced by Earth’s atmosphere, one of the world’s sharpest telescopes just got a whole lot sharper. (p. 156)

Some Arctic wildlife are being exposed to high amounts of toxic wastes as glacial melting releases pollutants that had been buried in ice for decades. (p. 155)

Satellite imagery indicates that sprawling urban development has been disproportionately gobbling up those lands best able to support crops. (p. 155)

Electron spins crossed from one semiconductor to another with apparent ease and little or no mussing of their direction, suggesting that sandwiches of materials common in microcircuits are no obstacle to creating spin-information channels in future circuits. (p. 155)

A compound from a tree found throughout tropical Africa could prove useful as a topical antifungal medication. (p. 159)

Scientists searching for the carrier of the iridovirus causing a salamander disease have dismissed frogs and fish, but not birds. (p. 159)

A radio signal that NASA hoped came from the vanished Mars Polar Lander has a terrestrial origin, scientists from the space agency and Stanford University have concluded. (p. 159)

A blast wave from supernova 1987A, the brightest stellar explosion witnessed from Earth since 1604, has begun lighting up a ring of gas surrounding the explosion. (p. 159)