Feature

  1. Health & Medicine

    Born to Heal

    The controversial strategy of screening embryos to produce donors for siblings raises hopes and presents new ethical dilemmas.

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  2. Tech

    Body Builders

    By growing stem cells on three- dimensional polymer scaffolds, tissue engineers hope to mimic natural tissue development and ultimately produce replacement body parts.

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  3. Earth

    Killer Waves

    Scientists are using sophisticated computer models, field studies of coastal geology, and data from tidal gauges to assess the tsunami risk for coastal residents.

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  4. Health & Medicine

    Inflammatory Fat

    Immune system cells may underlie much of the disease-provoking injury in obese individuals that has been linked to their excess fat.

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  5. Computing

    Straining for Speed

    Hitting fundamental limits on how small they can make certain structures within semiconductor transistors, chip makers are deforming the silicon crystals from which those transistors are made to eke out some extra speed.

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  6. Math

    Computation’s New Leaf

    Plants in which large numbers of simple units interact with one another appear to compute how to coordinate the actions of their cells effectively.

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  7. Astronomy

    Bare-Naked Galaxies

    A decade's worth of observations is spotlighting how the vast sea of gas surrounding a cluster of galaxies can alter the shape of a galaxy plowing through it.

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  8. Tech

    Diagnosing the Developing World

    Researchers are learning how to adapt sophisticated technologies to meet the health-care needs of the developing world.

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  9. Code Breakers

    Chemical tags applied to proteins that DNA wraps around regulate genetic activity.

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  10. Animals

    Where’d I Put That?

    Birds that hide and recover thousands of separate caches of seeds have become a model for investigating how animals' minds work.

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  11. Animals

    Cetacean Seniors

    Whales that give new meaning to longevity.

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  12. What’s Worth Saving?

    A fracas over a biological term could have huge consequences for conservation.

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