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- Tech
Start your engines
Mechanical engineers have developed a system that greatly decreases the amount of toxic hydrocarbons a car releases.
By Eric Jaffe - Planetary Science
SMART stop
The European Space Agency's first mission to the moon ended with a deliberate bang on Sept. 3.
By Ron Cowen - Health & Medicine
Shingles shot’s value is uncertain
The cost-effectiveness of a new vaccine against shingles remains uncertain, making it difficult to assess whether adults should routinely receive the shot.
By Ben Harder - Planetary Science
Martian doings
The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has finished reshaping its orbit, while the venerable rover Opportunity is approaching the rim of the widest and deepest crater it has yet visited.
By Ron Cowen - Health & Medicine
Progestin linked to hearing loss in older women
Elderly women who received progestin as part of hormone replacement therapy have poorer hearing than do women who didn't get progestin.
By Nathan Seppa - Anthropology
Neandertal debate goes south
A controversial report concludes that Neandertals lived on southwestern Europe's Iberian coast until 24,000 years ago, sharing the area for several thousand years with modern humans before dying out.
By Bruce Bower - Tech
A thin laser gets thinner
Researchers have created a microchip laser that fires an extraordinarily thin beam of high-intensity light.
By Peter Weiss - Astronomy
Temperamental Monsters
A new theory suggests that many huge stars undergo outbursts during which they shed most of their mass late in life rather than doing it gradually over their 3-to-4-million-year lifetimes.
By Ron Cowen - Health & Medicine
Calling Death’s Bluff
New methods of assessing a person's risk of sudden death due to a heart arrhythmia may enable doctors to better identify which patients need to receive an implanted defibrillator.
By Ben Harder - Humans
Letters from the September 23, 2006, issue of Science News
Moo juiced? I live in Northern California, where forest-biomass power plants are common (“Radiation Redux: Forest fires remobilize fallout from bomb tests,” SN: 7/15/06, p. 38). One power plant takes the ashes that result and places them where cows forage. I’m wondering to what level of concentration this process will accumulate the cesium in organic […]
By Science News - Humans
From the September 12, 1936, issue
A babe on the moon, antiseptics from oat hulls, and spinning isotopes apart.
By Science News - Earth
Sustainable Design Competition
Do you have an idea for a cutting-edge technology that could protect the environment while promoting economic growth? The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is offering college professors and their students an opportunity to turn ideas into reality through its P3 (People, Prosperity and the Planet) grants competition. EPA’s P3 is a student design competition […]
By Science News