News
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9/11’s Fatal Road Toll: Terror attacks presaged rise in U.S. car deaths
Federal data indicate that fear of flying after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks caused a second toll of lives on U.S. roads in the last three months of that year.
- Earth
Bogged Down: Ancient peat may be missing methane source
Massive peat bogs in Russia may have been a major source of atmospheric methane just after the end of the last ice age.
- Materials Science
Marine Superglue: Mussels get stickiness from iron in seawater
The secret behind the binding power of mussel glue lies in iron extracted from seawater.
- Astronomy
Astronomy: Man Bites Dog; Planet heats its star
Observing a sunlike star 90 light-years from Earth, astronomers have found evidence of a closely orbiting planet heating its star.
- Health & Medicine
Clear Airways: Quelling a protein stops mucus overload
By interfering with a protein that earlier research implicated in mucus secretion, scientists have countered overstimulation of mucus secretion in the airways of mice.
- Physics
A Solid Like No Other: Frigid, solid helium streams like a liquid
Frozen helium prepared in a laboratory has apparently transformed into a superfluid solid, or supersolid—a never-before-seen phase of matter that theorists predicted more than 30 years ago.
- Tech
Tapping sun’s light and heat to make hydrogen
Researchers have demonstrated a highly efficient means of splitting water molecules to generate hydrogen fuel.
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Dog personality: His master’s traits
Personality traits may vary as much from one dog to another as they do from one person to another, a new study suggests.
- Materials Science
Nanowires grow on viral templates
Researchers are using viruses to assemble semiconducting nanowires—the building blocks of future electronic circuits.
- Physics
Light pulse hovers in atom capsule
A new way to freeze light pulses in midflight preserves the pulses' optical energy and may eventually lead to using stationary light in optical circuits and quantum computers.
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Human genes take evolutionary turns
Researchers have identified a set of genes that has evolved an extensive pattern of alterations unique to people.
- Earth
This pollutant fights lupus
A hormone-mimicking pollutant that leaches out of some plastics appears to fight lupus.
