Feature
- Physics
Pitching Science
A new computer model of baseball pitching helps give pitching robots humanlike abilities and may have enabled engineers to solve a half-century-old puzzle of baseball science.
By Peter Weiss - Paleontology
Beyond Bones
The forensic analysis of trace fossils such as footprints, nests, burrows, and even coprolites—fossilized feces—reveal subtle clues about ancient species, their behavior, and their environment.
By Sid Perkins -
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- Anthropology
Evolution’s Youth Movement
The fossils of ancient children may provide insights into the evolution of modern Homo sapiens.
By Bruce Bower -
- Astronomy
Captured on Camera: Are They Planets?
Studying several groups of nearby, newborn stars–many of which weren't known until a few years ago–researchers may soon obtain the first image of a bona fide planet orbiting a star other than our sun.
By Ron Cowen -
A More Perfect Union
Forsaking life in the outside world, endosymbiotic bacteria of some insects traded freedom and nutrients for life inside a cell.
- Chemistry
Cosmic Chemistry Gets Creative
By simulating extraterrestrial impacts on Earth, researchers are firing away at the question of how life started.
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- Earth
Big Bergs Ahoy!
Although the break-up of Antarctica's northernmost ice shelves has been linked to warmer temperatures in the area, the cause of the unusual number of large icebergs calving from the continent's southern ice shelves last year was likely not global warming.
By Sid Perkins - Tech
Getting Nanowired
Makers of nanowires may overcome the limits that loom for microchip fabrication.
By Linda Wang