All Stories
- Physics
Squashed spheres set a record for filling space
Modestly deformed spheres can stack with unexpected compactness.
- Health & Medicine
Hepatitis C drugs are less effective in black patients
A standard drug combination for hepatitis C is less likely to knock out the virus in blacks than in whites.
- Health & Medicine
Narcolepsy Science Reawakens
Recent advances in understanding the biological underpinnings of narcolepsy have created a new diagnostic tool and point toward possible future therapies.
- Tech
Sixth Sense
A budding technology called electric field imaging may soon enable devices such as appliances, toys, and computers to detect the presence of people and respond to their motions.
- Health & Medicine
Tea and a Daughter’s Puberty
The age at which a girl first starts her monthly menstrual periods is later among daughters of tea drinkers than among daughters of moms who typically choose coffee or another beverage.
- Humans
From the June 9, 1934, issue
Mexican archaeology, dry ice for shrinking metals, and choosing optimal flight paths for airplanes.
- Math
Groups, Graphs, and Erdös Numbers
Erdös numbers reveal the great extent of mathematical collaboration.
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19431
Horvath and Toffel’s comparison of the environmental impacts of the paper versus the electronic editions of the New York Times is a bit misleading. A personal digital assistant isn’t good for advertising or newspaper browsing. In other words, the PDA users aren’t getting a comparable product. Still, the day is probably not too far off […]
- Earth
Newspaper’s Footprint: Environmental toll of all the news that’s fit to print
The environmental impacts of getting a newspaper dropped on your doorstep each morning vastly outweigh those of receiving the same information via a handheld electronic device.
- Chemistry
Weighty Discovery: Chemical screening technique identifies potential anthrax drug
A new version of mass spectrometry could speed the process of drug discovery by enabling more accurate screening of thousands of chemicals at once.
- Animals
Well-Tuned Bats: These animals are what they hear
Two studies of bats find that neighbors can live in virtually different worlds because their echolocation calls are tuned to detect different prey.
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Genetic Pickup: Did animals get brain genes from bacteria?
Genes that make brain chemicals may have been acquired from bacteria.
