News

  1. Worm to elephant: New genome targets

    The National Human Genome Research Institute has released a list of 18 wildly different creatures as targets for genome sequencing.

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  2. Paleontology

    Bird Brain? Cranial scan of fossil hints at flight capability

    Detailed computerized tomography scans of the fossilized braincase of an Archaeopteryx show that several flight-related regions of the feathered creature's brain were highly developed.

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  3. Health & Medicine

    Swallowed a Fly: Insects may spread foodborne microbe to chickens

    Flies sucked through the ventilation ports of industrial chicken coops may spread the pathogen Campylobacter jejuni, which can ultimately sicken people who eat undercooked chicken.

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  4. Animals

    Anybody know this fish?

    A 2-month marine-biodiversity survey of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge concluded this week, bringing home much data and some novel specimens.

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  5. Tech

    Lighting the Way for Water: New strategy for steering drops with finesse

    Using a beam of ultraviolet light, researchers manipulate tiny drops of water on a surface—a demonstration that could lead to ultrafast and highly precise chemical reactions on a chip.

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  6. Health & Medicine

    Gene Delivery: Mouse study shows new therapy may reverse muscular dystrophy

    A single defective gene causes muscular dystrophy, and researchers have now found a way to deliver a working copy of that gene to the entire muscular system in mice.

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  7. Astronomy

    Explosive News: Telescopes find signs of gentler gamma-ray bursts

    Astronomers appear to have discovered an unexpected population of low-energy gamma-ray bursts, and they could be 10 times more numerous than previously-known higher-energy bursts.

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  8. Health & Medicine

    Stopping Alzheimer’s: Antibody thwarts disease in mice

    Antibodies against amyloid protein, which gums up the brains of Alzheimer's patients, reverse a form of the disease in mice.

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  9. Earth

    Twin satellites track water’s rise and fall

    A pair of satellites launched in 2002 has detected small, regional changes in Earth's gravitational field that are caused by seasonal variations in rainfall and soil moisture.

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  10. Humans

    Where Ph.D.s pay off

    Salaries for full-time scientists and engineers in the United States have generally outpaced inflation, but academic researchers tend to earn substantially less than their counterparts in industry and government.

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  11. Materials Science

    Charging gold with a single electron

    Dropping a single electron onto a gold atom with a scanning tunneling microscope converts gold from its neutral state to an ionic state.

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  12. Tech

    Quantum dots light up cancer cells in mice

    Brightly fluorescent crystals known as quantum dots have the potential to seek out cancerous cells in the body, a trick that could lead to highly precise cancer screening.

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