Uncategorized

  1. Math

    Knots in Proteins

    Knotted proteins are rare but more than just random occurrences.

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  2. Humans

    From the October 10, 1936, issue

    The inner beauty of leaves, a better treatment for pneumonia, and alcohol fuel for cars.

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  3. Physics

    Hawking at CERN

    Physicist Stephen Hawking visited the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in late September 2006. The CERN Web site offers a glimpse of Hawking’s visit and video of two lectures that he presented, one for a general audience on the origin of the universe and the other for a specialist audience on the “semi-classical birth […]

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  4. Chemistry

    Pretty in Pictures: Details of molecular machinery gain Nobel

    This year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry went to a researcher who determined the structure, in atomic detail, of RNA polymerase taken from yeast cells.

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  5. 19743

    It is ironic that the father of the current recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry won the prize in medicine. Looking at the research of 2006 winner Roger D. Kornberg, his prize should have been awarded in medicine. For his father, Arthur Kornberg, the prize in 1959 should have been in chemistry. The good […]

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  6. Earth

    Nearly Naked: Large swath of Pacific lacks seafloor sediment

    Little or no sediment has accumulated on a broad patch of ocean bottom in the remote South Pacific, the result of a combination of factors that probably can't be found anywhere else on Earth.

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  7. Animals

    Courting Costs: Male prairie dogs seem too busy mating to dodge predators

    Male prairie dogs get so distracted during mating season that predators find them easy pickings.

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  8. Well Traveled: Gene split arose early in domesticated goats

    Two separate goat lineages inhabited the same site in southwestern Europe about 7,000 years ago, indicating that the extensive transport and mixing of domesticated goats began shortly after the origins of farming in the Near East.

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  9. Math

    Messiness Rules: In high dimensions, disorder packs tightest

    In high dimensions, disorderly arrangements of spheres pack together more densely than orderly arrangements do.

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  10. Tech

    Teasing Apart Nanotubes: Fast-spun carbon fibers may feed an industry

    Researchers have devised a way to sort carbon nanotubes by size and electronic properties.

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  11. Health & Medicine

    Life Blood: Drug stops mothers’ bleeding after births

    A drug sometimes used to induce abortions can stem bleeding after childbirth.

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  12. 19742

    In the study that was cited in this article misoprostol was tested as a more practical means of inducing postdelivery contractions in women in developing countries, despite “troubling side effects.” Because most women need no intervention to cause the uterus to contract, why not wait a few minutes to see which of them will require […]

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