All Stories

  1. Health & Medicine

    Tests may better detect prostate cancer

    Two novel tests for prostate cancer may help physicians catch this disease earlier and with far fewer false alarms.

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  2. Planetary Science

    A Comet’s Long Tail Tickles Ulysses

    Stretching more than half a billion kilometers, the ion tail that Comet Hyakutake flaunted when it passed near the sun in 1996 is the longest ever recorded and suggests that otherwise invisible comets could be detected by searching for their tails.

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  3. Math

    Hiding in DNA

    Spies might have to start boning up on molecular biology to pass along and decipher secret messages. During World War II, German spies used microdots to hide information in plain view. Consisting of a greatly reduced photograph of a typed page, a microdot could be pasted on top of a printed period at the end […]

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  4. Math

    Hiding in DNA

    Spies might have to start boning up on molecular biology to pass along and decipher secret messages. During World War II, German spies used microdots to hide information in plain view. Consisting of a greatly reduced photograph of a typed page, a microdot could be pasted on top of a printed period at the end […]

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  5. Humans

    From the April 5, 1930, issue

    SPARROW-SIZE KINGFISHER The Celebes Wood Kingfisher (Ceycopsis fallax), shown on the cover of this week’s SCIENCE NEWSLETTER, is a bird scarcely as large as an English Sparrow. Similar kingfishers of tiny dimensions are found in various tropical countries. They are hunters as well as fishers and feed on insects and other life as well as […]

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  6. Paleontology

    Trilobites to Go

    Extinct even before dinosaurs existed on Earth but extensively preserved in the fossil record, the eight orders of trilobites (more than 15,000 species) live on via this large, informative Web site, created by zoologist and amateur trilobite enthusiast Sam Gon III. The site provides a gallery of images, a glossary of terms, and much more. […]

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  7. Physics

    Nanotubes get into gear for new roll

    Atoms on the surface of carbon nanotubes appear to mesh when tubes roll across a graphite surface, making the tubes possible atomic-scale gears, which have been long-sought in nanotechnology.

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  8. Physics

    Devilish polygons speak of past stress

    A new theory and a simple test with cornstarch and water may help explain the polygonal geometry of rock columns in the Devil's Postpile in California and elsewhere.

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  9. 19138

    This article states, “Scientists knew that some small carnivores hunted in packs . . . .” That sounds quite subjective to me. Finding many small theropods together with a possible victim can have many interpretations. Vultures mass at a carcass, but would you say they are pack hunters? Russ AgreenDanton, Md. I can certainly understand […]

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  10. Paleontology

    Dinosaurs, party of six, meat eating

    The bones of six carnivorous dinosaurs discovered in a fossil bed in Patagonia may indicate that big, meat-eating dinosaurs were social creatures.

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  11. Paleontology

    Fossil gets a leg up on snake family tree

    A 95-million-year-old fossil snake with legs may be an advanced big-mouthed snake, not a primitive ancestor.

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  12. Math

    Random packing of spheres

    A new definition of random packing allows a more consistent and mathematically precise approach to characterizing disordered arrangements of identical spheres.

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