Feature

  1. Animals

    Wild Hair

    The technique of studying animals through genetic analysis of their fur gained fame with a political furor over lynx, but scientists have applied the technique to many other animals.

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  2. Ecosystems

    Deprived of Darkness

    From anecdotal reports of little-studied phenomena, researchers suspect that artificial night lighting disrupts the physiology and behavior of nocturnal animals.

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  3. Earth

    Stemming the Tide

    New approaches to stopping the introduction by ships of invasive species to North American waters are beginning to show promise but have a long way to go.

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  4. Chemistry

    The True Sweet Science

    New techniques and tools are helping scientists elucidate the roles that complex sugars play in the human body and in drug manufacturing.

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  5. Health & Medicine

    Aerial War against Disease

    Researchers around the world are catching on to the idea of using satellites to predict where diseases may strike.

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  6. Math

    Guessing Secrets

    Analyzing an intriguing variant of the familiar game of 20 questions provides insights into Internet communication.

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  7. Animals

    Lemonade from Broken Amber

    The fossilized microbes found inside termites that have been encased in amber for 20 million years are remarkably similar to those found within the ancient insects' modern cousins.

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  8. Tech

    Taming High-Tech Particles

    Researchers are beginning to study whether nanomaterials could have unintended negative consequences in the human body or the environment.

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  9. Physics

    The Black Hole Next Door

    Microscopic black holes—fleeting replicas of the huge, matter-gobbling ones in space—may be detected soon in our atmosphere and at a big particle collider now being built.

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  10. Earth

    Water for the Rock

    A long-popular theory about how Earth got wet—that the oceans are puddles left by an ancient rain of comets—doesn't seem to hold water, and new hypotheses suggest that the celestial pantry is now empty of a key ingredient in the recipe for Earth.

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  11. Astronomy

    Rethinking an Astronomical Icon

    Examining the Eagle nebula's pillars of creation with infrared detectors, scientists are viewing an astronomical icon in a whole new light.

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  12. Ecosystems

    Are They Really Extinct?

    A few optimists keep looking for species that might already have gone extinct.

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