Uncategorized
- Planetary Science
In the Zone: Extrasolar planet with the potential for life
Astronomers this week announced that they had found Earth's closest known analog outside the solar system, an object with an average temperature that may allow water to be liquid on its surface.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Physics
Liquid origami
A French team has created the first mini-origami figures that fold themselves around droplets of water.
- 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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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.
- 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.
- 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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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, […]
- 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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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, […]
