Feature
- Tech
Oceans of Electricity
The world's first commercial wave-power plant began pumping current into a Scottish island's electric grid last winter, just ahead of a host of competing schemes for converting ocean-wave motion into electricity.
- Health & Medicine
Fatty Findings
A recently discovered protein may explain at least part of the molecular mechanisms behind links among obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and even some cancers.
- Astronomy
A Dark Force in the Universe
Cosmologists are thinking dark thoughts about what kind of mystery force may be contorting the cosmos, pushing galaxies apart at a faster and faster rate.
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Gray Matters
Once believed to be a supporting cast, the brain cells called astrocytes appear to play important roles in many brain scenarios.
- Health & Medicine
Blood Relatives
After decades of research, several companies are about to release the first line of artificial blood products.
- Health & Medicine
Breathing on the Edge
Researchers are exploring how both sea-level lowlanders and high-altitude natives cope with low oxygen levels.
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Things That Go Thump
There's a whole world of animal communication by vibration that researchers are now exploring.
- Humans
Where’s the Book?
Innovative curricula are moving science education away from a reliance on textbooks.
- Humans
Errant Texts
New studies lambaste popular middle-school science texts for being uninspiring, superficial, and error-ridden.
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Learning in Waves
Learning plays a largely unappreciated role in mental development, according to researchers who examine the variety of tactics children adopt as they attempt to solve problems in mathematics and other areas.
- Health & Medicine
Making Sense of Centenarians
The number of centenarians is expected to double every ten years, making this formerly rare group one of the fastest-growing in the developed world. Researchers are turning to studies of the oldest old to determine how genes, lifestyle, and social factors contribute to longevity.
- Physics
Jiggling the Cosmic Ooze
Spurred by the first tentative sightings after a decades-old search, physicists seeking the universe's mass-giving particle — the Higgs boson — have fired up the world's highest-energy particle collider to join the pursuit.
