New, high-resolution images unveiled this week not only offer supporting evidence that parts of ancient Mars resembled a land of lakes but also point out prime locations to look for fossils if life ever existed on the Red Planet. (p. 372)

A team of researchers is developing highly sensitive acoustic sensors using ordered arrays of carbon nanotubes, which act much like the rodlike stereocilia of the inner ear. (p. 372)

Two brain areas long considered crucial for perceiving and speaking words also spring into action in deaf people who are using sign language or watching others do so. (p. 373)

Seismic waves generated by an extraterrestrial object crashing into Mexico 65 million years ago appear to have sent sediment from shallow waters sliding off the continental shelf. (p. 373)

Two fossil specimens of a primitive, starling-size bird that lived about 125 million years ago have tail feathers that may hold the clues to how feathers originated. (p. 374)

Microscopic polymer tubes can tangle themselves into a new and possibly useful structure—tiny "yarn balls" that flatten out and partly unravel in an electric field. (p. 374)

Some fragrances used in home-care products can play a role in generating potentially harmful air pollution. (p. 375)

The drug rituximab, when added to chemotherapy, boosts survival rates in people with diffuse B-cell lymphoma, a kind of cancer. (p. 375)

A genetically crippled strain of yeast can vaccinate mice against deadly normal strains. (p. 375)

Chemistry and materials science step up to preserve history, old and new. (p. 378)

Status at birth can foreshadow illnesses decades later. (p. 382)

Astronomers have glimpsed a rare, long-lived neutron-star explosion that may represent the burning of carbon just beneath the surface of this superdense star. (p. 376)

With the discovery of two additional moons, the ringed planet now has a retinue of 24 known satellites orbiting it. (p. 376)

Brain regions implicated in vision may also contribute to the images in the "mind's eye." (p. 376)

A brain-damaged man yields clues to the neural organization responsible for experiencing disgust. (p. 376)

A study finds that 20 of 21 people who reported having a penicillin allergy when filling out paperwork during a hospital visit in fact don't have one, suggesting that the prevalence of this allergy is overstated. (p. 381)

Silencing of the gene that encodes the cancer-suppressing protein APC is common in people with esophageal cancer, suggesting that physicians might use this genetic abnormality as a marker for the disease. (p. 381)

When laboratory vortices are mixed to create the equivalent of a tornado in a hurricane, the "hurricane" may gobble up spots of calm from the outside world. (p. 381)

Arrays of microscopic tips may offer a way to pack digital data more tightly and transfer it more quickly than is possible with magnetic hard disks. (p. 381)

Despite tantalizing, last-minute hints of a long-sought, mass-giving particle called the Higgs boson, dismantling of the Large Electron-Positron collider has begun. (p. 381)