Feature

  1. Words Get in the Way

    New studies explore people's tendency to have trouble recalling faces or other hard-to-describe perceptions after giving verbal accounts of them, with an eye toward improving police interviewing techniques with crime eyewitnesses.

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  2. Happy Anniversary

    In the 50 years since the discovery of DNA's double helix structure, scientists have developed striking new ways to visualize the molecule.

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  3. Silence of the Xs

    Does junk DNA help women muffle one X chromosome?

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  4. Anthropology

    The Stone Masters

    Investigations of modern-day expert and novice craftsmen of stone tools and decorative stone beads offer insights into the making of stone implements thousands and perhaps even millions of years ago.

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  5. Ecosystems

    Cultivating Weeds

    Some formerly mild-mannered plants turn into horticultural bullies when planted far outside their native range.

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  6. Inside Violent Worlds

    Political conflict and terror look different up close and local.

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  7. Health & Medicine

    The Vaccinia Dilemma

    To inform the current debate on who should be vaccinated for smallpox given the possibility of—or in the event of—a bioterrorism attack, researchers are using mathematical models and data from vaccination campaigns and past smallpox outbreaks.

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  8. Tech

    Building a Better Shuttle

    Researchers are working on both more heat-tolerant materials and totally new designs for vehicles that might ultimately replace the space shuttle.

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  9. After West Nile Virus

    As biologists try to estimate the impact of West Nile virus on wildlife, it's not the famously susceptible crows that are causing alarm but much rarer species.

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  10. Computing

    Pictures Only a Computer Could Love

    New, unconventional lenses shape scenes into pictures for computers, not people, so that computer-equipped microscopes, cameras, and other optical devices can see more with less.

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  11. Humans

    When Biologists Get Bombed

    Or shot at by soldiers. This isn't textbook conservation science.

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  12. Agriculture

    Detoxifying Desert’s Manna

    Farmers need no longer fear the sweet pea's dryland cousin.

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