News
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AnthropologyAncestral Bushwhack: Hominid tree gets trimmed twice
In separate presentations at scientific meetings, two anthropologists challenged the influential view that the human evolutionary family has contained as many as 20 different fossil species.
By Bruce Bower -
Egg’s missing proteins thwart primate cloning
Scientists have identified a reason why cloning a person may be difficult, if not impossible.
By John Travis -
PhysicsNot even bismuth-209 lasts forever
Touted in textbooks as the heaviest stable, naturally occurring isotope, bismuth-209 actually does decay but with an astonishingly long half-life of 19 billion billion years.
By Peter Weiss -
EarthHarbor waves yield secrets to analysis
New findings by ocean scientists may help port officials in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, predict potentially destructive waves in the city's harbor.
By Sid Perkins -
TechTipping tiny scales
A prototype detector based on a tiny silicon cantilever that operates in air has achieved a 1,000-fold sensitivity boost when measuring tiny quantities of chemical agents.
By Peter Weiss -
Planetary ScienceRoving on the Red Planet
NASA last month selected the landing sites for rovers scheduled to begin exploring the Martian surface next January.
By Ron Cowen -
EarthSeismic waves resolve continental debate
New analyses of seismic waves that have traveled deep within Earth may answer a decades-old question about the thickness of the planet's continents.
By Sid Perkins -
Health & MedicineProtein implicated in Parkinson’s disease
Inhibiting the natural protein cyclo-oxygenase-2, or COX-2, might help fight Parkinson's disease.
By Nathan Seppa -
Out of China: SARS virus’ genome hints at independent evolution
The newly identified SARS virus is the product of a long and private evolutionary history, clues from its genome suggest.
By Ben Harder -
Materials ScienceBlunt Answer: Cracking the puzzle of elastic solids’ toughness
Rubbery materials prove tougher than theory predicts because cracks trying to penetrate those stretchy materials grow blunt at their tips.
By Peter Weiss -
Materials ScienceBone Fix: New material responds to growing tissue
A new scaffolding material stimulates bone regeneration.
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Genetic Clue to Aging? Mutation causes early-aging syndrome
A gene defect that causes accelerated aging may provide insight into normal aging.
By John Travis