News

  1. Planetary Science

    Martian water everywhere

    Combining data taken from two craft orbiting Mars with images and spectra collected by one of the Mars rovers, a scientist has found evidence that a body of water greater in area than all the Great Lakes combined once covered the Red Planet.

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  2. Physics

    To freeze this liquid, add heat

    A wrong-headed mixture of liquid starch, water, and a solvent freezes when heated.

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  3. Earth

    Extra rainfall may stem warming in Midwest

    Increased precipitation in parts of the Midwest may reduce the temperature increases expected to occur in the next few decades as a result of global warming.

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  4. Health & Medicine

    Drug-resistant staph causes more pneumonia

    A recently discovered variant of Staphylococcus aureus that is resistant to some antibiotics became a major cause of severe pneumonia among people who caught the flu last winter.

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  5. New bacteria linked to vaginal infections

    Several newly described bacteria appear to share much of the responsibility for causing a common infection in women.

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  6. Health & Medicine

    Kids’ vaccine guards adults too, for now

    Serious infections caused by pneumococcus have decreased in both children and adults since the introduction of a childhood vaccine against seven strains of the bacterium, but other pneumococcus strains are now becoming more prevalent among adults with HIV.

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  7. Health & Medicine

    Human antibody halts SARS in hamsters

    Human-derived antibodies can not only prevent infections when given in advance of SARS exposure but also mitigate the symptoms of an infection already in progress.

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  8. Humans

    Scrubbing Down: Free soap, hygiene tips cut kids’ illnesses

    In urban slums, enhancing family hygiene can prevent about half of childhood diarrhea and respiratory illnesses, including pneumonia, even among infants too young to wash themselves.

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  9. Anthropology

    Evolution’s Buggy Ride: Lice leap boldly into human-origins fray

    A controversial genetic analysis of lice raises the possibility that some type of physical contact occurred between ancient humans and Homo erectus, probably in eastern Asia between 50,000 and 25,000 years ago.

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  10. Humans

    Nobel prizes: The sweet smell of success

    Nobel prizes in the sciences went to research on olfactory genes, subatomic particles, and the molecular kiss of death.

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  11. Animals

    Separate Vacations: Birds winter apart but return in sync

    Mated pairs of black-tailed godwits may fly off to winter refuges a thousand kilometers apart but can still arrive back at their breeding site the next spring within a few days of each other.

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  12. Tech

    Dawn of the commercial space age

    On Oct. 4, a privately funded, piloted craft called SpaceShipOne reached a height of 378,000 feet (115.1 kilometers), breaking a world altitude record for rocket-powered planes and claiming the $10 million Ansari X prize.

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