News

  1. Chemistry

    Water softeners get friendlier to health, environment

    New technology softens water without adding sodium, which ends up in drinking water and contaminates the environment.

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  2. Genetics

    DNA data offer evidence of unknown extinct human relative

    Melanesians may carry genetic evidence of a previously unknown extinct human relative.

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  3. Life

    Virus triggers immune proteins to aid enemy

    Virus-fighting proteins in the immune system can sometimes help out their targets instead.

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  4. Climate

    Warmer waters bring earlier plankton blooms

    As oceans warm, phytoplankton grow quickly.

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  5. Paleontology

    Ancient armored fish revises early history of jaws

    The fossil of a 423-million-year-old armored fish from China suggests that the jaws of all modern land vertebrates and bony fish originated in a bizarre group of animals called placoderms.

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  6. Planetary Science

    Experts don’t agree on age of Saturn’s rings

    Saturn’s rings could be almost as old as the solar system, and the Cassini craft is poised to help find out.

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  7. Neuroscience

    Mice smell, share each other’s pain

    Pain can jump from one mouse to another, presumably through chemicals detected by the nose.

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  8. Archaeology

    Wild monkeys throw curve at stone-tool making’s origins

    Monkeys that make sharp-edged stones raise questions about evolution of stone tool production.

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  9. Genetics

    ‘Three-parent babies’ explained

    Several in vitro techniques can produce babies with three biological parents.

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  10. Life

    In a first, mouse eggs grown from skin cells

    Stem cells grown in ovary-mimicking conditions in a lab dish can make healthy mouse offspring, but technique still needs work.

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  11. Neuroscience

    Out-of-sync body clock causes more woes than sleepiness

    The ailment, called circadian-time sickness, can be described with Bayesian math, scientists propose.

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  12. Animals

    Be careful what you say around jumping spiders

    Sensitive leg hairs may let jumping spiders hear sounds through the air at much greater distances than researchers imagined.

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