Feature
- Earth
Muddy Waters
Even though human activities such as agriculture and deforestation are sending more sediment into streams and rivers, less of that material is reaching river deltas, a trend that exacerbates problems such as subsidence and coastal erosion.
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Learning to Listen
Disparate groups of creatures, including bats, toothed whales, and birds, have evolved biological sonar that they use to track prey, but other creatures have evolved ways to detect this sonar and thereby increase their odds of survival.
- Materials Science
Something to Chew On
Researchers are closer than ever to making synthetic enamel to improve dental implants and perhaps to grow a whole tooth from scratch.
- Ecosystems
Decades of Dinner
Sunken whale carcasses support unique marine ecosystems that display stages of succession and change, just as land ecosystems do.
- Tech
Radio-a-Wreck
Radio transmitters broadcasting from imploding buildings are informing engineers about how such collapses disrupt radio communications and how rescuers might overcome those disruptions.
- Planetary Science
The Huygens Chronicles
After several months of painstaking work analyzing data from the Huygens probe, planetary scientists are able to see the surface of Saturn's moon Titan in greater detail than ever before.
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Read All about It
Brain studies and cross-cultural investigations indicate that the neural path to becoming a good reader varies, depending on a person's inherent capacity for assessing print and on the design principles of his or her native writing system.
- Tech
Special Treatment
Researchers are developing nanosize metallic particles that can break down soil and groundwater contaminants faster and more cheaply than any other existing technology.
- Astronomy
Dark Influence
A study of galaxy clusters tests whether dark matter particles can collide with each other, while other observations show that dark matter doesn't behave as expected near the centers of galaxies.
- Math
Navigating Celestial Currents
Mathematicians are creating an atlas of solar system highways along which spacecraft can coast using no fuel.
- Health & Medicine
The Race to Prescribe
Race-based medicine could be a stepping-stone to the higher goal of targeting medicines toward the genetics of individual patients, but some researchers are troubled by the implications of practicing medicine according to patients' racial identities.
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Code of Many Colors
Researchers have yet to find markers for race in the genome, but understanding the biology underlying perceptions of race could have dramatic social and personal consequences.
