Uncategorized

  1. Humans

    Space Woes: NASA programs reel from shuttle problems

    Technological problems for NASA's space shuttle Discovery, such as falling foam and dangling insulation, are causing safety worries and throwing a crimp into the U.S. space program.

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  2. Tech

    Speed Reader: Gene sequencing gets a boost

    The first lab-ready technology to challenge the dominant gene-sequencing technique known as the Sanger method taps miniaturization and parallel reading of hundreds of thousands of DNA stretches to boost speed and slash cost.

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  3. Health & Medicine

    Virus Attack on Cancer: Heat makes neglected technology work better

    Adding heat sensitizes tumor cells to the effects of a genetically modified virus, which then can kill them.

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  4. Earth

    Multifaceted Mineral: Intense heat, pressure bear new form of silica

    By squeezing a mineral sample to pressures higher than those deep within Earth, then zapping it with a laser, scientists have created a crystalline form of silicon dioxide previously unknown on Earth.

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  5. 19581

    While no obstetrician nowadays advocates starving expectant mothers, there was a general belief for many years that a pregnant woman should gain minimal weight. It might be of interest to know if this practice had any influence on the incidence of schizophrenia. Nelson MaransSilver Spring, Md.

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  6. Health & Medicine

    From Famine, Schizophrenia: Starvation gives birth to personality disorder

    Women who go severely hungry during early pregnancy face twice the normal risk of having a child who develops schizophrenia in adulthood.

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  7. Planetary Science

    Bigger than Pluto: Tenth planet or icy leftover?

    Astronomers have found a body larger and more distant than Pluto, the biggest object found in the solar system since Neptune and its moon Triton were discovered in 1846.

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  8. Double Dog: Researchers produce first cloned canine

    The dogged pursuit of a South Korean research team has produced Snuppy, the world's first cloned canine.

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  9. Humans

    Letters from the August 6, 2005, issue of Science News

    Empty threat? “Empty Nets: Fisheries may be crippling themselves by targeting the big ones” (SN: 6/4/05, p. 360) reads as if there is something to be alarmed about. By selectively catching large fish, we have reduced “the mean size [of food fish to] one-fifth of what it was.” This is not cause for alarm. It […]

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  10. Math

    Playing with Ruth-Aaron Pairs

    Home-run records lead to intriguing prime-number patterns.

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  11. Earth

    Life thrived below solid ice shelf

    A survey of a segment of Antarctic seafloor that until recently had laid beneath a thick, floating ice shelf for thousands of years has revealed an ecosystem apparently based on chemical nourishment, not sunshine.

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  12. 19580

    This article reports on research indicating that winds above the ocean surface can increase due to an apparent damping of turbulence by particles of ocean spray. I would like to point out that a similar phenomenon has been identified in rivers. In situations where the transport of fine sediment particles (sands, clays) coming from the […]

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