News in Brief

  1. Climate

    Flood damage to cost up to $1 trillion per year by 2050

    Coastal cities with growing populations will be inundated by sea level rise.

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  2. Life

    To make biofuel, cut the lignin

    Researchers disable key protein making plant sugars easier to access.

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  3. Climate

    Climate change carved canyons in Andes

    Erosion came thanks to cooling and more rain, not tectonic activity.

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  4. Planetary Science

    NASA gives up on fixing Kepler

    Space telescope’s days as a premier planet hunter are over.

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  5. Psychology

    Highlights from the American Sociological Association annual meeting

    Research on social media's reluctant users, marital ideals and single parenthood and intimate victims of cybernastiness presented August 10-13 in New York City.

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  6. Animals

    New carnivore species found

    Tiny olingo species dubbed 'olinguito'.

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  7. Astronomy

    Magnetic field of black hole measured

    Pulsar near Milky Way’s center makes first assessment of this type possible.

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  8. Health & Medicine

    Mediterranean diet may offset genetic risk for stroke

    Compared to a low-fat diet, eating fish and olive oil kept blood sugar levels lower in people with a common diabetes risk factor.

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  9. Life

    Envisioning a fly brain

    A new map of the fruit fly brain shows how the insect detects motion.

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  10. Tech

    Online ‘likes’ multiply themselves

    Social media users swayed by previous ratings, researchers find when they randomly assign positive and negative votes.

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  11. Health & Medicine

    Camels implicated as possible hosts of MERS virus

    Antibodies to a mysterious pathogen that has sickened 94 people were found in camels in Oman and the Canary Islands.

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  12. Health & Medicine

    High blood glucose levels linked to dementia

    Elderly people with elevated blood glucose levels are more apt to develop dementia, whether or not they have diabetes.

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