All Stories

  1. Health & Medicine

    Breast implants may mask early cancer

    Breast augmentation is the leading cosmetic surgery in North America, with roughly 400,000 procedures a year in the United States alone. A study now finds some evidence that breast implants may hinder early detection of breast malignancies. The good news: This didn’t affect survival.

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  2. Physics

    The backstory behind a new element

    Science News contributing editor Alexandra Witze describes what it took to synthesize ununseptium, element number 117.

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  3. Health & Medicine

    Mapping the fruit fly brain

    A new digital atlas could reveal how 100,000 neurons work together.

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  4. Physics

    Colliding dust grains charge each other up

    Physicists propose a way that cloud particles can electrify themselves.

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  5. Health & Medicine

    Gulf War Syndrome real, Institute of Medicine concludes

    U.S. veterans who claim to suffer from Gulf War Syndrome just received powerful new ammunition against arguments that their symptoms are trivial, if not altogether fictional. On April 9, the health arm of the National Academy of Sciences issued a report that concludes military service in the Persian Gulf War has not only been a cause of post-traumatic stress disorder in some veterans but also is "associated with multisymptom illness” – as in Gulf War Syndrome.

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  6. Book Review: Here Be Dragons by Dennis McCarthy

    Review by Sid Perkins.

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  7. Book Review: The Eerie Silence: Renewing Our Search for Alien Intelligence by Paul Davies

    Review by Elizabeth Quill.

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  8. 50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology by S.O. Lilienfeld, S.J. Lynn, J. Ruscio and B.L. Beyerstein

    Psychologists team up to debunk popular urban legends in that field. Wiley-Blackwell, 2010, 332 p., $26.95. 50 GREAT MYTHS OF POPULAR PSYCHOLOGY BY S.O. LILIENFELD, S.J. LYNN, J. RUSCIO AND B.L. BEYERSTEIN

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  9. Duel at Dawn: Heroes, Martyrs, and the Rise of Modern Mathematics by Amir Alexander

    The Romantic Age zeitgeist profoundly influenced modern mathematicians, a science historian argues. DUEL AT DAWN: HEROES, MARTYRS, AND THE RISE OF MODERN MATHEMATICS BY AMIR ALEXANDER Harvard Univ. Press, 2010, 320 p., $28.95.

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  10. Wild Urban Plants of the Northeast: A Field Guide by Peter Del Tredici

    An exploration of the plant life that springs up amid chain-link fences and asphalt jungles. WILD URBAN PLANTS OF THE NORTHEAST: A FIELD GUIDE BY PETER DEL TREDICI Cornell Univ. Press, 2010, 374 p., $29.95.

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  11. The Match: “Savior Siblings” and One Family’s Battle to Heal Their Daughter by Beth Whitehouse

    A family medical crisis uncovers issues around reproductive technology. THE MATCH: “SAVIOR SIBLINGS” AND ONE FAMILY’S BATTLE TO HEAL THEIR DAUGHTER BY BETH WHITEHOUSE Beacon Press, 2010, 272 p., $24.95.

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  12. Life

    Briny deep basin may be home to animals thriving without oxygen

    Creatures living deep in the Mediterranean without oxygen would be a remarkable first, biologists say.

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