Uncategorized

  1. Plants

    One gene, many shapes

    A single genetic change may lead to the notable diversity of leaves seen in Galapagos Island tomato plants.

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  2. Space

    Neutron tie-dye

    Neutrons can produce 3-D scans of a magnetic field, even inside a solid.

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  3. Health & Medicine

    Drugs: Still bad for you

    Heavy cannabis smokers have increased blood levels of a protein linked to heart disease.

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  4. Humans

    BOOK REVIEW | Curiosity and Enlightenment: Collectors and Collections from the Sixteenth to the Nineteenth Century

    Review by Amy Maxmen.

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  5. Health & Medicine

    BOOK REVIEW | Microcosm: E. coli and the New Science of Life

    Review by Elizabeth Quill.

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  6. Life

    BOOK LIST | Manipulative Monkeys: The Capuchins of Lomas Barbudal

    Primatologists follow the social lives of these big-brained Costa Rican monkeys. Harvard Univ. Press, 2008 358 p. $45 MANIPULATIVE MONKEYS

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  7. Math

    BOOK LIST | Guesstimation: Solving the World’s Problems on the Back of a Cocktail Napkin

    Learn to use simple arithmetic to approximate anything. Princeton Univ. Press, 2008, 300 p. $19.95 GUESSTIMATION

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  8. Space

    BOOK LIST | Newton: Ackroyd’s Brief Lives

    The book promises a personal history of Isaac Newton. Ackroyd also wrote Shakespeare: The Biography and London: The Biography. Nan A. Talese, 2008 176 p. $21.95 NEWTON: ACKROYD’S BRIEF LIVES

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  9. Plants

    BOOK LIST | Winter Trees

    In this picture book, a child uses sight and touch to identify seven common trees, even after they’ve lost their leaves. Charlesbridge Publishing, 2008, 30 p. $15.95 WINTER TREES

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  10. Health & Medicine

    Testing nanoparticles

    Testing the toxicity of dozens of nanoparticles en masse may offer a faster track to medical applications.

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  11. Health & Medicine

    Pollution and blood clots

    Inhaling tiny pollution particles, even at concentrations allowed in urban air, appears to increase the risk that an individual’s veins will develop potentially lethal blood clots.

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  12. Life

    It’s the network, stupid

    The complexity of humans may lie not in genes but in the web of interactions among the proteins they make.

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