Column

  1. Astronomy

    Listening in on cosmic messages

    Yet to be deciphered, fast radio bursts represent the latest messages from space with the potential to tell us more about the cosmos.

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  2. Climate

    Adapting to climate change: Let us consider the ways

    Many organisms do have tools to deal with sudden environmental changes, as freelance writer and Science News “Wild Things” blogger Sarah Zielinski reports.

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  3. Life

    A new view of dinosaurs, a clearer view of lunar origins

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  4. Tech

    Scientists struggle to find signals in the noise

    Even in a simple system like email, detecting the signal from the noise is not always easy. It can be even more difficult separating a dazzling discovery from dust or whether a breast mass is cancerous or benign.

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  5. Health & Medicine

    Your brain on marijuana: two views

    Many of the “facts” that people believe to be true about marijuana are not supported by science, and while the pro-pot lobby cherry-picks data to support its arguments (denying marijuana’s addictiveness, for example), so too do anti-marijuana groups, which play up pot’s dangers.

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  6. Science & Society

    One of the best ways for kids to learn science: by doing it

    A biodegradable Band-Aid. A low-cost, ultrasonic guide to parallel parking. A reinvention of the toilet. These were among the nearly 1,400 science fair projects on display at the 2014 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair. Science News’ parent organization, the Society for Science & the Public, has run the annual event since 1950.

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  7. Prying tales from ancient DNA and a far-away moon

    Exploring the DNA of ancient bones on Earth and the waters of an icy moon, Europa, could shift our views of life.

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  8. Genetics

    New tools reveal new truths about fungi, flies, antibiotics

    In the newsroom, any story about a new scientific method faces an uphill battle. In this issue are a number of stories that feature how science is done.

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  9. Earth

    Science can save lives, but only if society lets it

    Society faces lots of problems that science can’t yet fix. But there are also plenty of cases in which scientists know enough to avert tragedy.

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  10. Cosmology

    Gravitational wave detection a big day for the Big Bang

    On a snowy St. Patrick’s Day, our offices officially shut down by a late-winter storm, the Science News staff was abuzz over the biggest thing since the Higgs boson. On March 17, scientists announced the first direct evidence of the theory of cosmic inflation: primordial gravitational waves.

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  11. Health & Medicine

    Beating addiction: impossible or surprisingly common?

    Addiction may be a dysfunctional if temporary coping strategy, clouds may not reduce global warming and other stories from the March 22 issue.

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  12. Materials Science

    Making it work, on paper and just maybe in practice

    Last spring, Science News reported on the lack of progress by the main U.S. nuclear fusion effort. As the researchers still contend, laser-initiated fusion should work. It works on paper. But in practice, even a set of extremely powerful lasers failed to trigger the fusion of hydrogen nuclei and the concomitant chain reaction and release of net energy expected.

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