News

  1. Tech

    Loopy Light: Rings that delay photons may advance microchips

    Chains of tiny, high-precision, light-conducting loops of silicon may open the door to using optical circuits to carry enormous data flows within computer chips.

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  2. Health & Medicine

    Bad to the Bone: Acid stoppers appear to have a downside

    Popular acid-reducing drugs called proton-pump inhibitors may increase the risk of hip fractures in people over 50.

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  3. Humans

    When budgeting for quakes, dig deep

    If earthquakes that struck the United States since 1900 are any guide, the nation can expect to suffer seismic damages of about $2.5 billion dollars each year in the future.

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  4. Earth

    Scraping the bottom

    A survey of deep waters in western Lake Superior has revealed the tracks left by massive icebergs scraping bottom there during the last ice age.

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  5. Earth

    Glaciers give major boost to sea level

    The ongoing disappearance of glaciers and other small ice masses worldwide makes a larger contribution to sea level rise than the melting of ice sheets on Greenland and Antarctica does.

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  6. Earth

    Dating a massive undersea slide

    Pieces of moss buried in debris left along the Norwegian coast by an ancient tsunami have enabled geologists to better determine the date of the immense underwater landslide that triggered the inundation.

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  7. Humans

    Longer work hours may warm climate

    U.S. workers put in more hours than most other workers around the world, and one consequence is dramatically higher energy and environmental costs per employee.

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  8. Chemistry

    For sweat’s sake

    Soldiers and emergency crews may one day find comfort as well as safety in their chemical-protection gear, now that researchers have created a breathable, chemical-blocking composite material.

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  9. Tech

    Ahead of the Curve: Novel morphing wing may reduce aircraft’s fuel use

    A prototype aircraft wing has demonstrated in its first flight tests that its morphing might save fuel.

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  10. Earth

    Irony on High: Global warming cools, thins upper atmosphere

    Increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the air, which cause temperatures at Earth’s surface to warm, will turn the upper layers of the atmosphere cooler and thinner in coming decades, new research suggests. This counterintuitive phenomenon, first predicted in the late 1980s and recently inferred from satellite data, will probably lead […]

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  11. Planetary Science

    The Big Picture: Cassini spies Titan’s tall mountains

    A spacecraft has discovered the largest mountains known on Titan, Saturn's smog-shrouded moon.

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  12. Health & Medicine

    AIDS Avoidance: More studies find that circumcision deters HIV

    Two large trials in Africa find that male circumcision limits HIV infection, which could prompt governments on that continent to promote or subsidize the operation.

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