All Stories
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EcosystemsLessons for the new year
SN Editor in Chief, Eva Emerson, reflects on looking to nature for insights on how to constructively look ahead - even if just a year -drawing from a handful of this issues natural science stories for her 2015 resolutions.
By Eva Emerson -
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NeuroscienceCold War collaboration probed possible viral cause of ALS
A mid-1960s collaboration between American and Soviet researchers explored a possible viral cause of ALS.
By Beth Mole -
LifeInsect-eating bats implicated as Ebola outbreak source
Insect-eating bats, not fruit bats, may have started the Ebola epidemic.
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Health & MedicineA bilingual brain is prepped for more than a second language
Bilingual and multilingual people make efficient decisions on word choices, neural exercise that may protect the aging brain.
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EnvironmentTrash researcher tallies ocean pollution
Marcus Eriksen has always had a thing for trash, and now he tallies ocean pollution.
By Julia Rosen -
EcosystemsDam demolition lets the Elwha River run free
Removing a dam involves more than impressive explosions. Releasing a river like Washington state's Elwha transforms the landscape and restores important pathways for native fish.
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Computing‘The Imitation Game’ entertains at the expense of accuracy
Inaccuracies weaken “The Imitation Game,” an otherwise enjoyable film about Alan Turing breaking the Enigma code during World War II.
By Andrew Grant -
LifeContamination blamed in STAP stem cell debacle
Stem cells supposedly made in acid baths were really embryonic stem cells, investigation finds.
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EcosystemsCities are brimming with wildlife worth studying
Urban ecologists are getting a handle on the varieties of wildlife — including fungi, ants, bats and coyotes — that share sidewalks, parks and alleyways with a city’s human residents.
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GeneticsThe art of DNA folding
Cells must compress genetic material into a nucleus that measures only about 5 micrometers across. To accomplish the feat, cells make loops in the DNA.
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Quantum PhysicsBell’s math showed that quantum weirdness rang true
50 years ago, John Bell proved a theorem that led the way to establishing the weirdness of quantum physics.