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We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

  1. Earth

    Countering Copenhagen’s Carbon Footprint

    The United Nations’ Climate Change Conference, beginning Monday (Dec. 7), will draw legions of people to Copenhagen from 192 countries. Traveling to Denmark — sometimes from the far corners of the Earth — will expend huge amounts of energy. And spew plenty of the very carbon dioxide that the meeting negotiators are trying to rein in. So several bodies will be offsetting the carbon footprint of this gathering — with bricks. Or brick ovens, anyway.

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  2. Computing

    First programmable quantum computer created

    System uses ultracold beryllium ions to tackle 160 randomly chosen programs.

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  3. Tech

    House passes medical isotopes bill

    A spot of encouraging news emerged yesterday on the medical-isotope front. The House of Representatives voted 440 to 17 in favor of a bill to reestablish domestic production of molybdenum-99. It’s the feedstock for the most heavily used nuclear agent in diagnostic medicine.

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  4. Tech

    Large Hadron Collider suffers carb attack

    Efforts to get the Large Hadron Collider up and running just encountered a temporary snag, according to yesterday's online edition of The Times of London. A crusty chunk of bread “paralysed a high voltage installation that should have been powering the cooling unit.”

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  5. Earth

    Nanoparticles’ indirect threat to DNA

    Tiny metal nanoparticles can damage DNA, essentially by triggering toxic gossip.

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  6. Computing

    Quantum computers could tackle enormous linear equations

    New work suggests that the envisioned systems would be powerful enough to quickly process even trillions of variables.

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  7. Chemistry

    Concerned about BPA: Check your receipts

    Some cash register receipts offer the potential for relatively large exposures to an estrogen mimic.

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  8. Tech

    Nobel Prize in physics awarded for work with light

    Charles K. Kao wins for discoveries enabling fiber-optic communication, and Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith win for inventing the charge-coupled device

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  9. Humans

    Flu: Grim stats

    Though risk of death from conventional flu strains escalates dramatically, beginning around age 45, a new study finds that masks do a fair job of slowing the infection's transmission.

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  10. Animals

    Spider men weave silken tapestry

    It took herculean effort, but Madagascar crafters created an extraordinary piece of woven art from spider silk.

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  11. Physics

    Neutrons for military and medical imaging

    An accelerator-based neutron-production system is being designed to cull bombs at risk of exploding prematurely — and make the feedstock for a major isotope used in nuclear medicine.

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  12. Life

    Locust wings built for the long haul

    Flexible wings help locusts maximize efficiency in flight, new research shows.

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