News

  1. Gene variations police the storage of fat

    Researchers have uncovered genetic variations controlling a calorie-draining spigot in the body.

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  2. Earth

    Salmon hatcheries can deplete wild stocks

    Hatchery fish appear to be replacing wild salmon populations in the Columbia River.

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  3. Planetary Science

    Asteroid Eros poses a magnetic puzzle

    Measurements with a magnetometer aboard the NEAR-Shoemaker spacecraft a few days after it landed on the asteroid 433 Eros confirmed a major puzzle: The rock has no detectable magnetic field.

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  4. Insects deploy sticky feet with precision

    Sticky ant and bee footpads retract and unfold in time with insect steps, so the insects don't trip over their own sticky feet.

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  5. Health & Medicine

    Does breast-feeding accelerate AIDS?

    A study of HIV-infected mothers in Kenya suggests that breast-feeding places them at a health risk.

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  6. Chemistry

    Molecular Chemistry Takes a New Twist

    New calculations show that a basic tenet of chemistry is wrong: Ethane forms its most stable structure not due to so-called steric effects, but because of a quantum mechanical influence.

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  7. Physics

    Stretching and twisting a bright idea

    A new, stretchy type of liquid-crystal component makes it possible to change a laser's color by simply pulling on the membrane—a much easier, cheaper means of adjustment than that used for today's complex and expensive tunable lasers.

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  8. Physics

    In a squeeze, nitrogen gets chunky

    Remarkable already for being a semiconductor and, perhaps, an explosive, a new, solid form of nitrogen made by crushing the ordinary gas to the highest pressures ever also stands out because it continues to survive when the pressure is released.

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  9. Physics

    Electrons trip on tiny semiconductor steps

    A first glimpse of how a semiconductor's surface alters electrons' magnetic fields, or spins, suggests that tiny steps in the surfaces are tripping up efforts to create so-called spintronics circuits from semiconductors.

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  10. Health & Medicine

    Genetic flaw found in painful gut disease

    Scientists have discovered a genetic mutation that occurs in people with Crohn's disease, a digestive disorder that attacks the intestines.

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  11. Slave-making ants get rough in New York

    The whole ant slave-making business turns more violent in New York than in West Virginia, even though it features the same species.

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  12. Health & Medicine

    Poliovirus slaughters brain tumors in mice

    Scientists have altered a live polio virus, inducing it to target and kill brain tumor cells without causing polio.

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