Uncategorized

  1. Ecosystems

    Groundwater dropping globally

    Nine-year record collected from orbit finds supply dropping mostly due to agriculture.

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  2. Life

    Pigeons rival primates in number task

    Trained on one-two-three, the birds can apply the rule of numerical order to such lofty figures as five and nine.

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  3. Humans

    Network analysis predicts drug side effects

    A computer technique can foresee adverse events before medications are widely prescribed.

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  4. Life

    Drugs activate dormant gene

    A compound that blocks DNA unwinding can spur production of a critical brain protein in mice, leading to hope for a therapy for Angelman syndrome.

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  5. Astronomy

    Toasty planets circle stellar heart

    Roasted remains orbit former red giant.

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  6. Space

    First Earth-sized planets netted

    The Kepler space telescope gets one step closer to its mission of discovering habitable worlds by finding two orbs of terrestrial proportions orbiting a distant sunlike star.

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  7. Humans

    Fewer fires in Africa these days

    How flames spread, not how frequently people start them, controls burning on the continent.

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  8. Life

    BPA sends false signals to female hearts

    The ingredient of some plastics and food packaging can interfere with cardiac rhythm at surprisingly low concentrations.

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  9. Math

    Medicine needs a sensible way to measure weight of the evidence

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  10. Science & Society

    2011 Science News of the Year: Science & Society

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  11. 2011 Science News of the Year: Atom & Cosmos

    Not so fast, neutrinos News of particles zipping along faster than light (SN: 10/22/11, p. 18) was met with universal skepticism — including from the physicists in Italy who reported the results. But the Gran Sasso National Laboratory’s OPERA team hasn’t found any source of error that could explain how the neutrinos appeared to shave […]

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  12. 2011 Science News of the Year: Nutrition

    Howard Oates/Istockphoto The value of vitamin D The simmering debate over vitamin D came to a boil as the scientific organization representing hormone experts embraced daily recommendations for the vitamin that far exceed those put forward in late 2010 by a U.S. Institute of Medicine panel. The Endocrine Society asserted in July that people need […]

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