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  1. Humans

    Letters from the November 12, 2005, issue of Science News

    Big leap The pendular running gait described in “Stepping Lightly: New view of how human gaits conserve energy” (SN: 9/17/05, p. 182) as one of the most efficient bipedal gaits looks remarkably like the way eyewitnesses claim Bigfoot creatures move. In a Bigfoot hoax, one might use a gait that is unhuman but energy efficient, […]

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  2. Paleontology

    Big bird terrorized South America

    Researchers in Argentina have discovered fossils that may represent the heftiest flightless bird to ever have roamed the planet.

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  3. Paleontology

    Tusk analyses suggest weaning took years

    Changes in the proportions of various chemical isotopes deposited in mammoth tusks as they grew have enabled scientists to estimate how long it took juvenile mammoths to become fully weaned.

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  4. Paleontology

    Mmmm, that’s crunchy

    Isotopic analyses of the teeth of otters and mongooses from Africa have led one paleontologist to suggest that some of humanity's ancient kin shared those modern animals' preference for shelled prey such as freshwater crabs and snails.

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  5. Physics

    Revisiting Einstein’s incomplete theory

    New, ultraprecise measurements of single-particle trajectories confirm that there's something missing from Einstein's mathematical model for Brownian motion.

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  6. Health & Medicine

    A toast to thin blood

    Moderate consumption of alcohol may make a person's blood less likely to clot.

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  7. 19611

    This article says, “the blood of people who consume 3 to 6 drinks weekly was less likely to clot in a test tube than was the blood from nondrinkers.” I wonder if there is a rebound effect that could make the blood of new abstainers even more likely to clot than that of regular nondrinkers. […]

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  8. Physics

    That’s the Way the Spaghetti Crumbles

    Investigating how uncooked spaghetti breaks has uncovered new mechanisms behind shattering and energy concentration, with possible implications for how structures fail.

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  9. 19610

    I would venture to suggest the reason that the pasta-fragmentation process stops. Once the strand breaks, it becomes x number of new strands, each of which is still vibrating at some residual frequency and amplitude. The mass, diameter, and length of each resultant strand might determine the wavelength and amplitude necessary to break it. If […]

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  10. Earth

    Runaway Heat?

    A variety of changes in the Arctic is making the region darker and accelerating its warming climate.

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  11. 19609

    This article makes the point that shrub intrusion into tundra reduces albedo, the percentage of reflected light, but doesn’t report actual impact on ground temperature. Albedo itself is not a good indicator of waste heat. Much of the extra absorbed sun energy is used by the shrubs for photosynthesis and the fixing of carbon and […]

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  12. Math

    Climbing a Watery Slope

    A water-walking insect can propel itself up steep, slippery slopes without moving its legs.

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