All Stories

  1. Eggs and more grown from mouse stem cells

    Stem cells from mouse embryos can be converted into eggs, skin, or heart muscle.

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  2. Earth

    Vermiculite turns toxic

    Federal agencies issued a warning that much of the vermiculite ceiling insulation installed a decade or more ago may be tainted with cancer-causing asbestos.

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  3. Earth

    To contain gene-altered crops, nip them in the seed

    Researchers have demonstrated that, in principle, they can add genes that block genetically modified crops from breeding with conventional varieties and thus from spreading their artificial traits.

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  4. Math

    Uncovering a prime failure

    Mathematicians have returned to the drawing board after what looked like a dramatic step forward in understanding prime numbers.

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  5. 19243

    The discovery that humans share 99.4 percent of their genetic sequences with chimps does not make chimps like us in any meaningful sense or lower “humanity’s pedestal” in the slightest degree. In some 5 million years on Earth the sum total of chimps’ cultural achievements has been exactly 0. In only 200,000 years, modern humans […]

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  6. Anthropology

    Humanity’s pedestal lowered again?

    A new genetic study reaches the controversial conclusion that chimpanzees belong to the genus Homo, just as people do.

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  7. Health & Medicine

    Gene therapy thwarts hepatitis C in mice

    Gene therapy that induces infected liver cells to self-destruct slows hepatitis C dramatically in mice.

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  8. Physics

    Taking a shine to number 100

    Scientists for the first time literally shed light on the properties of radioactive fermium.

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  9. 19323

    For those of us who know how to draw and understand the varieties of linear perspective, David Hockney’s proposal that the old masters used optical aids rings true. One of his examples will suffice: The uncanny accuracy of difficult-to-depict patterns in folding cloth in works of the early 1400s is an indication that optical aids […]

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  10. Physics

    Reflections on Art

    By dissecting famous paintings in new ways, scientists are testing the veracity of artist David Hockney's controversial theory that some masters of Renaissance art secretly used optical projection devices.

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  11. Math

    Measuring with Jugs

    Given a 5-liter jug, a 3-liter jug, and an unlimited supply of water, how do you measure out exactly 4 liters? In her book In Code: A Mathematical Journey, Sarah Flannery gives this classic brainteaser as an example of the sorts of playful puzzles that her father, a mathematics lecturer at the Cork Institute of […]

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  12. Physics

    Light Switch: Crystal flaws tune the wavelengths

    By tweaking the crystal structure of the semiconductor gallium arsenide, researchers may have found a way to make cheaper components for fiberoptic networks.

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