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Science Past from the issue of May 23, 1959
NUCLEAR-POWERED BLIMP — America’s first nuclear-powered aircraft could very well be a huge blimp, about three times the size of those now being used by the U.S. Navy for submarine and plane spotting…. The blimp’s length would be 540 feet, making it possible to locate the atomic reactor far enough away from the craft’s control […]
By Science News - Life
Suppress-the-mob gene found in queen termites
Gene may help keep workers from illicit, royalty-threatening reproduction.
By Susan Milius - Space
Honing the Hubble constant
Revised value supports finding that dark energy does not vary with time.
By Ron Cowen - Animals
Basking sharks head south for winter
Satellite-tagging data suggest that basking sharks migrate south to the Caribbean in winter.
- Space
Using dead stars to spot gravitational waves
Astronomers are proposing a novel way to detect gravitational waves using ultraprecise observations of already known stars.
By Ron Cowen - Anthropology
Hobbit foot, hippo skulls deepen ancestral mystery
Hobbit fossils pose puzzling evolutionary questions for scientists in two new studies, one of hobbit foot bones and another of brain size in extinct pygmy hippos.
By Bruce Bower - Physics
Molecule turns red at breaking point
Materials made with a color-changing molecule may offer a red signal when under stress.
- Life
Portuguese trove of trilobite fossils
Fossils include largest known trilobite specimen and groups of the ancient arthropods caught in the act of molting and spawning.
By Sid Perkins - Health & Medicine
Keeping artery plaques under control
Toning down a gene called CHOP may offer a way to reduce the risk of arterial plaque ruptures, which can cause heart attacks and strokes, a study in mice shows.
By Nathan Seppa - Health & Medicine
Narcolepsy linked to immune system
Genome association study finds a second connection between the sleep disorder and the body's disease-fighting apparatus
- Space
Origin of high-energy cosmic rays more mysterious, again
The origin of the rare, energetic particles that previous evidence indicated came from galaxies that house supermassive black holes, is now much less certain.
By Ron Cowen - Space
Introducing the young Milky Ways
Astronomers discover ancestors of modern-day spiral galaxies
By Ron Cowen