All Stories by Lisa Grossman
- Physics
For quantum computer, add a dash of disorder
Flawed crystals could help couple light to matter and may compete with more perfectly ordered materials.
- Space
Geophysicists push age of Earth’s magnetic field back 250 million years
South African rocks suggest that the earliest stages of life on Earth were protected from harmful solar radiation.
- Space
Spirit: ‘The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated’
The Mars rover makes a small, but promising, move.
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- Health & Medicine
Brain tells signs from pantomime
Different brain areas light up when deaf people use American Sign Language than when they gesture.
- Humans
Finding coolable hot spots for crime
Some high-risk areas are easier to manage than others, a new model suggests.
- Astronomy
Black hole as a peephole
The galaxy’s central supermassive black hole could smear light to reveal extra dimensions.
- Space
Bouncing sands explain Mars’ rippled surface
A new study finds that dunes and ridges can form without much wind on the Red Planet.
- Materials Science
A charge for freezing water at different temperatures
Experiments use positive and negative forces to control ice formation at temperatures well below the normal freezing point.
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Breaking it Down
Studies of how things fall apart may lead to materials that don’t.
- Life
Carried aloft, tiny creatures avoid parasites, sex
Dry and blowing in the breeze, rotifers are safe from a deadly fungus — and perhaps from the vulnerabilities presumed to accompany asexual reproduction.
- Space
Mars rover Spirit still running, but only in place
Six years into its 90-day mission, NASA’s rover becomes a lander
