News

  1. Physics

    Scanner Darkly: Tiny venetian blinds enhance radiography

    Microscopic gratings that select scattered X rays might improve luggage screening and cancer detection.

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  2. Do-It-Yourself DNA: Scientists assemble first synthetic genome

    Assembly of the first human-made microbial genome could pave the way for making microbes with synthetic DNA.

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  3. Ecosystems

    Big Foot: Eco-footprints of rich dwarf poor nations’ debt

    The first global accounting finds rich and middle-income nations stomping heavy footprints on poorer ones.

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  4. Astronomy

    Four’s a crowd

    Astronomers have found a quartet of stars packed into a region smaller than Jupiter's orbit around the sun.

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  5. Astronomy

    Gravity at play: A double lens

    Astronomers have discovered an extraordinarily rare double cosmic mirage.

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  6. Astronomy

    Case of the misshapen disk

    A deformed disk around a young star may have gotten its swept-back appearance as the result of a collision with a dense gas cloud.

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  7. 9/11 attacks stoked U.S. heart ailments

    People who experienced serious stress reactions shortly after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks also displayed markedly elevated rates of new heart and blood vessel ailments over the next 3 years.

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  8. Antidepressants get overly positive spin

    Studies finding beneficial effects of antidepressant drugs for depressed patients get published far more often than do studies that uncover no antidepressant benefits.

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  9. Paleontology

    Life explodes twice

    The Ediacaran fauna were as varied as all animals in existence today and, more impressively, as in the Cambrian, report paleontologists.

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  10. Animals

    Fenced-off trees drop their friends

    Protecting acacia trees from large, tree-munching animals sets off a chain of events that ends up ruining the trees' partnership with their bodyguard ants.

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  11. Astronomy

    X-raying a galactic jet set

    The deepest X-ray portrait ever taken of the galaxy Centaurus A highlights its jets and activity around its supermassive black hole.

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  12. Anthropology

    Infectious Voyagers: DNA suggests Columbus took syphilis to Europe

    A genetic analysis of syphilis and related bacterial strains from different parts of the world fits the theory that Christopher Columbus and his crew brought syphilis from the Americas to Renaissance Europe, where it evolved into modern strains of the sexually transmitted disease.

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