News

  1. Math

    Prime proof zeros in on crucial numbers

    A new theorem may lead to a proof of Catalan's conjecture, a venerable problem in number theory concerning consecutive powers of whole numbers.

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  2. Animals

    First mammal joins the eusocial club

    Because naked mole rats exhibit permanent physical traits that distinguish certain castes of a colony, they belong to the same grouping as so-called eusocial insects such as bees, ants, wasps, and termites.

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  3. Earth

    Life Landed 2.6 Billion Years Ago

    Unusually carbon-rich rocks found in eastern South Africa may push back the evidence of life on land to 2.6 billion years ago, more than twice the current age of indisputably terrestrial organisms.

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  4. Health & Medicine

    Dormant Cancer: Lack of a protein sends tumor cells to bed

    Excess amounts of a protein called Myc triggers cancer in mice, but ratcheting back this supply sends the malignant cells into dormancy.

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  5. Earth

    Change in the Weather? Wind farms might affect local climates

    Large groups of power-generating windmills could increase wind speed, temperature, and ground-level evaporation, thereby influencing a region's climate.

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  6. Health & Medicine

    Fat Fuels PCB Damage: Diet influences toxic effects leading to heart disease

    Certain types of dietary fats can magnify PCB damage to artery cells in a way that sets the stage for cardiovascular disease.

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  7. Hearing Better in the Dark: Blindness fuels ability to place distant sounds

    New evidence indicates that blind people estimate the locations of distant sounds more accurately than sighted people do, even if sight loss didn't occur until adolescence or young adulthood.

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  8. A.M. and P.M. Clocks: Fruit fly brain has double timekeepers

    Two research teams have pinpointed one group of fly-brain neurons keeping time for morning activity and a different neuron group performing the same function for evening activity.

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  9. Chemistry

    Breakdown: How Three Chemists Took the Prize

    The Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to three scientists for their discovery of how cells mark proteins for destruction with a molecular tag called ubiquitin, otherwise known as the kiss of death.

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  10. Planetary Science

    Mars Rovers: New evidence of past water

    Twin rovers on opposite sides of the Red Planet have found additional evidence that liquid water once flowed there.

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  11. Trash to Treasure: Junk DNA influences eggs, early embryos

    A type of DNA once thought to be little more than genetic clutter may play a role in gene expression in mammalian eggs and newly formed embryos.

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  12. Verbal sighting in brains of the blind

    Brain areas typically responsible for visual processing instead contribute to verbal skills in blind people.

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