All Stories
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- Space
Better view of the Milky Way
New studies revise the structure of the Milky Way, exchanging the old map of a four-armed spiral galaxy for a two-arm version. The makeover also includes the discovery of a smaller, short, gaseous arm that is a long-sought counterpart to a similar arm near the galaxy’s center.
- Planetary Science
Small exoplanet discovered
Astronomers have discovered the smallest planet known that is beyond the solar system and orbits an ordinary parent body.
- Space
Making an impression
In its seventh day after successfully landing on the Red Planet, the Phoenix Lander digs its first trench and is ready to start its ice-hunting.
- Health & Medicine
Microbes clean up mercury
Researchers think a microbe could clean up mercury-laced Native American artifacts.
- Life
Replaying evolution
By watching bacteria evolve in the lab for 20 years, researchers show that evolution may be rather capricious.
- Math
Communities of Communities of …
A new approach to network theory focusing on the subcommunities within networks may shed light on everything from food webs to terrorist cells. It may even act as an oracle, helping scientists identify connections within a network they haven’t yet seen.
- Humans
Fostering gains
New studies indicate that abused and neglected kids benefit from living with relatives and from high-quality foster care services.
- Agriculture
Green Living, Chinese-Style
Chinese is developing eco-cities to take their citizens straight from the agricultural to the ecological age.
- Earth
Natural heat
Heat from the decay of radioactive elements deep within the planet could meet Earth’s energy needs almost three times over — if we could harness all of it.
- Health & Medicine
A Faulty Eye Witness: Hallucinations
Treatment for Oliver Sacks' cancer damaged an eye and triggered something he never expected: his brain to display things that simply didn’t exist.
- Health & Medicine
A Faulty Eye Witness, Part I
Oliver Sacks shared observations from his latest journal on how losing sight in one eye changed a man's life. Sacks had intimate knowledge of every detail – because he’s the patient.
