News
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Life
Monkey moms and babies communicate from the start
Macaque mothers and infants engage in emotional interactions similar to those of human moms and their babies, a new study suggests.
By Bruce Bower -
Health & Medicine
Retrovirus might be culprit in chronic fatigue syndrome
An obscure pathogen shows up often in people diagnosed with the condition, scientists find.
By Nathan Seppa -
Chemistry
Nobel Prize in chemistry commends finding and use of green fluorescent protein
One researcher is awarded for discovering the protein that helps jellyfish glow and two for making the protein into a crucial tool for biologists.
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Health & Medicine
Pigs use mirrors
After some time to play around with a mirror, pigs figure out what to do when they glimpse a reflection of food.
By Susan Milius -
Chemistry
Nobel Prize in chemistry awarded for ribosome research
Ada Yonath, Thomas Steitz and Venkatraman Ramakrishnan will share the prize for unmasking the structure of the ribosome.
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Space
Largest known planetary ring discovered
Researchers have found a dusty band that circles Saturn and has a radius of more than 12 million kilometers.
By Ron Cowen -
Tech
Nobel Prize in physics awarded for work with light
Charles K. Kao wins for discoveries enabling fiber-optic communication, and Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith win for inventing the charge-coupled device
By Sid Perkins -
Space
Inspecting an asteroid that hit Earth
Researchers have analyzed fragments from 2008 TC3, the first asteroid ever tracked during its descent.
By Ron Cowen -
Psychology
Joint attention provides clues to autism and cooperation
Psychologists and philosophers convene to discuss the roots of shared knowledge at a meeting in Waltham, Mass.
By Bruce Bower -
Health & Medicine
Nobel in medicine honors discoveries of telomeres and telomerase
Three scientists share the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of telomeres, which protect the ends of chromosomes, and the enzyme telomerase, which adds the structures to the ends of chromosomes.
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Space
Universe has more entropy than thought
New calculations suggest that the cosmos is more disorderly than thought and is a bit closer to heat death.
By Ron Cowen -
Chemistry
Flowerless plants make fancy amber
A new analysis suggests that ancient seed plants made a version of the fossilized resin credited to more modern relatives