All Stories

  1. Man-made thymus churns out immune cells

    Scientists have constructed an artificial thymus to make immune cells in the laboratory.

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  2. Brain, heal thyself

    The rodent brain can be stimulated to replace damaged cells with new ones.

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  3. Protein helps the brain connect

    Neuroligins may help brain cells form specialized links known as synapses.

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  4. Wasps: Mom doesn’t like you best

    Female wasps that found a colony together show no favoritism toward their own offspring when the adults feed larvae.

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  5. Excuse me, dear, which octopus are you?

    Male blue-ringed octopuses get pretty far along in their courtship before they determine whether their partner is a female.

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  6. How butterflies can eat cyanide

    Some newly recognized chemical wizardry lets some Heliconius caterpillars thrive on leaves that defend themselves with cyanide.

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  7. Astronomy

    Astronomers get radio protection

    Astronomers studying the universe at millimeter-wave energies-the high-frequency portion of the radio spectrum-were given an official guarantee last month that commercial satellites and other communication devices won't interfere with the scientists' observations.

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  8. Astronomy

    The smashup that rejuvenates

    For some elderly stars, the fountain of youth may be only a collision away.

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  9. Math

    Contra Dances, Matrices, and Groups

    Though unknown to many people, contra dancing is practiced with great devotion and abandon throughout the United States by fans of this lively dance form. What’s striking is that a remarkably high percentage of contra dancing’s practitioners are highly educated, often involved in mathematics, computers, or engineering. Matrix representing initial configuration of two couples in […]

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  10. Tech

    Watching the Big Wheelers: In sea of cars, trucks reveal traffic flow

    A new way to sense traffic jams more quickly tracks the motion of trucks within the overall traffic flow.

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  11. Materials Science

    Making Polymers That Self-Destruct: Layers break apart in controlled way

    A new polymer film chews itself apart under certain conditions, making it a potential candidate for the controlled delivery of therapeutic drugs.

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  12. Health & Medicine

    Scarce-Banana Scare—But don’t kiss that banana good-bye yet

    Headlines have been blaring that the banana will be extinct within 10 years but crop specialists say that’s not likely. The furor has called attention, however, to a problem of worldwide banana supply and to the possibility that we’ll be peeling things a little different in 2013. The fuss started with the Jan. 18 New […]

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