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  1. Macho pheromones rile fellows

    Pheromones that induce aggression in other male mice are found in the major urinary protein complex in the animals' urine.

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  2. Physics

    Airy theory, but true

    Physicists have created a beam of light that bends in a curve.

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  3. Math

    Tied Up in Knots

    Physicists have shown that tumbled strings will form surprisingly complex knots, helping explain how knots spontaneously form in nature.

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  4. Earth

    Dead Serious

    Little progress has been made this decade in reducing the size of the Gulf of Mexico's dead zone, a massive area of oxygen-depleted water caused by agricultural and urban runoff.

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  5. Earth

    North by Northwest

    The Earth's magnetic poles wander around quite a bit, a phenomenon that occasionally confounded ancient explorers but is proving useful for today's archaeologists.

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  6. 19910

    I believe that the term declination was used in error in this article. On any nautical navigation chart the difference between magnetic and true north is called “variation.” Declination has always been the angle from the horizon to a point higher into the sky. Bob NickelsonKing and Queen Court House, Va. While navigators use the […]

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  7. My DNA Project

    Having trouble cracking the code that geneticists use to describe new molecular advances in health and medicine? Well, researchers at the University of Massachusetts have developed a program aimed at helping the public acquire the tools—including vocabulary, and background information—necessary to “become comfortable with genome issues, and to learn how to take advantage of the […]

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  8. Humans

    From the December 11, 1937, issue

    A sturdy new building for a mountaintop weather station, proving the authenticity of a treasure, and tracking cosmic rays underground.

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  9. Physics

    Light Swell: Optical rogue waves resemble oceanic ones

    Signals in optical fibers can combine into rare, short-lived spikes that resemble oceanic rogue waves.

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  10. Astronomy

    Run of the Mill: Finding galactic building blocks in early universe

    Astronomers have discovered 27 faint, run-of-the-mill galaxies from the early universe that may be some of the building blocks of giant galaxies such as the Milky Way.

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  11. Astronomy

    Stellar Opposites: Sky survey reveals new halo of stars

    The Milky Way galaxy possesses a distinct outer halo that orbits in the opposite direction from its inner halo and the rest of the galaxy.

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  12. Pulling Together: Mitotic ring self-assembly revealed

    A ring of proteins forms around the "waistlines" of cells to contract and split the cells in two, and scientists have now discovered how that ring self-assembles.

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