Feature

  1. Physics

    Double or Nothing

    The hunt for a rare, hypothetical nuclear transformation known as neutrinoless double-beta decay may answer one of the most urgent questions in physics today: How much do elementary particles called neutrinos weigh?

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  2. Aphids with Attitude

    A few aphid species that live socially in groups raise their own armies of teenage female clones.

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  3. Earth

    Pharm Pollution

    Antibiotics in sewage sludge and manure have the potential to poison plants or end up in food.

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  4. Health & Medicine

    Survivors’ Benefit?

    Smallpox outbreaks throughout history may have endowed some people with genetic mutations that make them resistant to the AIDS virus.

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  5. Anthropology

    Cultures of Reason

    East Asian and Western cultures may encourage fundamentally different reasoning styles, rather than build on universal processes often deemed necessary for thinking.

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  6. Tech

    Building a Supermodel

    Researchers are combining ergonomics and biological research with computer power to build a virtual human that can simulate human biology from anatomy down to the genetic code.

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  7. Evolutionary Shocker?

    A specific protein may help plants and animals store genetic variation and release it at times of stress.

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  8. Numbers in Mind

    Initial reports of babies' basic counting abilities have inspired a wave of new research and a spirited debate about what infants really know about numbers.

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  9. Earth

    The Importance of Being Electric

    By coordinating measurements from telescopes, planes, balloons, and a battery of instruments, terrestrial and space scientists have now placed themselves on almost intimate terms with sprites—luminous shapes that fleetingly appear high above lightning storms.

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  10. Health & Medicine

    Boning Up

    Biologists have discovered a mechanism for communication between two types of bone cell, and they're exploring the possible bone-growth-stimulating effect of popular cholesterol-lowering drugs called statins.

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  11. Earth

    Presto, Change-o!

    Compared with the snail's-pace processes that normally shape Earth's surface, the impacts of extraterrestrial objects change our planet's geology in a flash.

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  12. Health & Medicine

    Standing Up to Gravity

    Studies in space can help physicians better understand a disorder in which patients get faint or dizzy while standing.

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