Feature
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Head Agony
Jumpy cells may underlie migraine’s sensory storm.
- Climate
Soil’s Hidden Secrets
Shocking discoveries from the underground may shake up climate science.
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2011 Science News of the Year: Atom & Cosmos
Not so fast, neutrinos News of particles zipping along faster than light (SN: 10/22/11, p. 18) was met with universal skepticism — including from the physicists in Italy who reported the results. But the Gran Sasso National Laboratory’s OPERA team hasn’t found any source of error that could explain how the neutrinos appeared to shave […]
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2011 Science News of the Year: Nutrition
Howard Oates/Istockphoto The value of vitamin D The simmering debate over vitamin D came to a boil as the scientific organization representing hormone experts embraced daily recommendations for the vitamin that far exceed those put forward in late 2010 by a U.S. Institute of Medicine panel. The Endocrine Society asserted in July that people need […]
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2011 Science News of the Year: Molecules
Molecular muscle does the job Chemists often wish they could reach into a test tube and physically force a chemical reaction — and now they’ve come pretty darn close. In a feat of molecular arm-twisting, researchers attached polymer chains to an extremely stable ring-shaped molecule and tore it in two (SN Online: 9/15/11). The new […]
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2011 Science News of the Year: Environment
Courtesy of Christopher Arp/USGS Arctic warming signs Climatologists pointing to the Arctic as the leading barometer of global change have plenty of new evidence that wholesale warming is under way. Observational data indicate that the region’s air, soils and water have warmed substantially since 2006, suggesting that the climate has established a “new normal” (SN […]
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2011 Science News of the Year: Genes & Cells
Nicolle Rager Fuller Boons and busts via gut microbes Studying the secret lives of bacteria living in human intestines has yielded some unexpected finds. One study suggests that most humans have one of three different combinations of friendly microbes (SN: 5/21/11, p. 14), and another reveals that people’s mix of microbes depends heavily on diet. […]
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2011 Science News of the Year: Matter & Energy
Baile Zhang and G. Barbastathis/SMART Centre Quantum theory gets physical Reality can be understood not only in terms of the flow of energy, but also in terms of the flow of information. So says a team of physicists with a new take on quantum theory (SN: 8/13/11, p. 12). This theory, which explains how matter […]
