News

  1. Health & Medicine

    Different berries, similar cancer-fighting effects

    Animal tests suggest that esophageal and breast cancer might make good targets for several types of berries as dietary supplements.

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  2. Humans

    First Mexican-American and African-American genomes completed

    Studies hint that genetic diversity among Native Americans may rival that seen in some African populations.

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  3. Psychology

    Travelers have southern bias

    Southern routes to a destination often get picked over same-distance northern routes, possibly because people equate north with “up.”

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  4. Physics

    Bouncing beads outwit Feynman

    Ratchet-and-pawl thought experiment whirs to life, extracting work from bouncing beads.

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  5. Space

    Familiar comets may have distant roots

    More than 90 percent of objects found in the vast outer–solar system reservoir may have been born around other stars, new computer simulations suggest.

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  6. Earth

    Ancient marine reptiles losing their cool

    Warm-bloodedness may help explain the creatures’ evolutionary success, a new study suggests.

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  7. Space

    Portrait of a youthful planet

    New pictures confirm that astronomers have recorded a planet circling the star Beta Pictoris, making the orb the youngest, star-orbiting extrasolar planet to be photographed.

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  8. Ecosystems

    Parasite brood gets help from nearby microbes

    A critical interaction between whipworm and E. coli suggests a new way to battle the common gut infection.

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  9. Humans

    Ancient shoe steps out of cave and into limelight

    Excavations in an Armenian cave have uncovered the oldest known leather footwear, a 5,500-year-old shoe.

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  10. Health & Medicine

    What’s missing may be key to understanding genetics of autism

    A large study of people with the developmental disorder reveals the importance of extremely rare variations in genes, making each case a bit different.

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  11. Earth

    Gulf gusher is far and away the biggest U.S. spill

    As cleanup efforts progress, scientists try to track missing oil roaming below the surface.

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  12. Ecosystems

    Sharks use math to hunt

    Marine predators cruise the seas using fractal principles.

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