All Stories
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A Zeptospace Odyssey: A Journey into the Physics of the LHC by Gian Francesco Giudice
A physicist describes the science behind the Large Hadron Collider, the world’s largest particle accelerator, for a general audience. A ZEPTOSPACE ODYSSEY: A JOURNEY INTO THE PHYSICS OF THE LHC BY GIAN FRANCESCO GIUDICE Oxford Univ. Press, 2010, 276 p., $45.
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Letters
SN on the newsstand I’m blind so I’ve been reading your magazine in braille for quite a while. But most of my sighted friends have never heard of you guys. This is a great publication, and I’m glad that more readers will now become familiar with it (“Science News goes public: available on newsstands,” SN: […]
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Explaining the equation behind the oil spill disaster
Catastrophes come in all shapes and sizes, but some basic causative principles underlie most of them. Robert Bea, an engineer at the University of California, Berkeley, has studied system failures from space shuttle explosions to levee breaks during Hurricane Katrina — but as a former oil rig worker he is most familiar with drilling disasters. […]
- Health & Medicine
Feds probe Gulf spill health risks
The Institute of Medicine will be hosting a small public workshop in New Orleans, June 22 and 23, on possible health risks to Gulf coast residents and workers in the wake of the catastrophic BP oil spill. A June 16 congressional hearing previewed some of the concerns likely to arise at the meeting. They ranged from potential long-terms risks of DNA damage to claims that BP failed to provide protective gear to contract crews hired to clean up oil.
- Physics
Physics in free fall
Physicists drop supercold atoms down an elevator shaft to see what will happen.
- Humans
For sight-reading music, practice doesn’t make perfect
Individual memory differences may set upper limits on pianists’ sight-reading skill, regardless of their experience.
- Health & Medicine
Genetic defect tied to autoimmune diseases
Rare mutations in an enzyme lead to several different disorders.
- Space
All flash, no crash
New Hubble Space Telescope images confirm that Jupiter emerged unscathed from an impactor that created a fireball above the planet’s cloud tops on June 3. The new images indicate that the object exploded as a meteor in the planet’s upper atmosphere rather than plunging into the atmosphere
- Space
Astronomers stoke cosmic debate
Astronomers from the United Kingdom have published papers criticizing some of the evidence used to support theories of dark matter and energy.
- Space
Kepler craft reports apparent planetary bonanza
New results from an orbiting telescope promise to more than double the number of known extrasolar planets.
- Health & Medicine
Vitamin B6 linked to lowered lung cancer risk
High levels of folate and the amino acid methionine also seem to help, a new study finds.
- Earth
Loop Current will determine spill’s ultimate fate
Oceanographers track a newly formed eddy in the Gulf of Mexico and where it might carry oil.
