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  1. Physics

    Putting Einstein to the test

    A NASA mission has found new evidence for Einstein's theory of gravity, but its final results have been delayed by unexpected problems.

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  2. Physics

    Fermilab could beat CERN to the punch

    A new particle accelerator starting up next year in Switzerland should finally discover the origin of mass, unless an older U.S. machine does it first.

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  3. Health & Medicine

    No heart risk from hormones taken near menopause

    Contrary to some earlier indications, hormone replacement therapy might not impart heart risks to women who take it during their 50s.

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  4. Physics

    Liquid origami

    A French team has created the first mini-origami figures that fold themselves around droplets of water.

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  5. Earth

    Dry winters heat European summers

    When southern Europe receives scant rainfall in the winter, the whole continent tends to bake the following summer.

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  6. Uncommon cancer gets start in muscle cells

    Synovial sarcoma, a cancer thought to arise from joint tissue, actually forms in nascent muscle cells, a mouse study shows.

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  7. Animals

    Killer mice hit seabird chicks

    A surveillance video shows a worrisome sight: house mice nibbling to death rare seabird chicks on a remote island breeding colony.

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  8. 19825

    The NASA researchers baffled in this article by the hexagonal shape in Saturn’s soupy atmosphere at its northern pole should read “As waters part, polygons appear” (SN: 6/3/06, p. 348). It is worth investigating whether there is a similar phenomenon—I still suspect some sort of standing sine wave effect—at work in both cases. Ellery FrahmMinneapolis, […]

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  9. Planetary Science

    A hexagon on the ringed planet

    NASA scientists are puzzled by a giant, hexagon-shaped feature that covers Saturn's entire north pole.

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  10. Earth

    Flotsam Science

    Researchers have harnessed the power of flotsam—floating items as diverse as tennis shoes, tub toys, and hockey gloves—to chart the path and speed of the Pacific Subarctic Gyre, a group of currents in the North Pacific Ocean.

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  11. 19824

    The lines on the cave ceilings remind me very much of what a large pot of finger paint looks like after children extract what they want to draw with. I could easily see my children (especially when younger) drawing on their own faces and bodies all kinds of designs using the colored clay. Dan WoitulewiczDetroit, […]

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  12. Anthropology

    Children of Prehistory

    Accumulating evidence suggests that children and teenagers produced much prehistoric cave art and perhaps left behind many fledgling attempts at stone-tool making as well.

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