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  1. Tech

    Wanted: Better Yardsticks

    A new federal survey has found that a lack of measurement tools may jeopardize the United States' edge in technological innovation.

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  2. Computing

    The Machine’s Got Rhythm

    By teaching computers how to transcribe musical recordings, a relatively mundane task, researchers are opening new musical possibilities.

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  3. Humans

    Letters from the April 21, 2007, issue of Science News

    How the West isn’t one The author of “Why So Dry? Ocean temperatures alone don’t explain droughts” (SN: 2/10/07, p. 84), seems to feel, like most other writers do, that “the western United States” properly covers all geographical bases. Believe me, the Pacific Northwest is anything but dry. One other point about geography: Weather phenomena, […]

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  4. Math

    Forms of Symmetry

    Group theory inspires a West Coast sculptor.

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  5. Math

    Euler’s Beautiful Equation

    Leonhard Euler, one of the greatest mathematicians of all time, was born 300 years ago on April 15, 1707.

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  6. From the April 10, 1937, issue

    Living pearls and a clue to atomic structure.

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  7. Earth

    Greaseball Challenge

    And they’re off! The participants in this charity biofuel car rally are on their way from the U.S. East Coast to San Jose, Costa Rica. Powered by biodiesel, vegetable oil, waste grease, and other alternative fuels, the vehicles will all be donated to local communities at the end of the rally, which runs until April […]

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  8. Anthropology

    Disinherited Ancestor: Lucy’s kind may occupy evolutionary side branch

    A controversial analysis of a recently discovered jaw from a 3-million-year-old Australopithecus afarensis puts Lucy's species on an evolutionary side branch that eventually died out.

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  9. Health & Medicine

    Agents of Metastasis: Four proteins conspire in breast cancer spread

    Four proteins work together to assist cancer growth and metastasis, and drugs against them inhibit both processes, tests in mice suggest.

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  10. Physics

    Quantum Capture: Photosynthesis tries many paths at once

    The wavelike behavior of energy in chlorophyll might explain how plants are so efficient at using solar energy.

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  11. Female Stem Cells Flourish: Sex difference could affect therapies

    Certain adult stem cells from female mice regenerate better than those from males, indicating that not all stem cells are created equal.

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  12. 19820

    The existence of ancient proteins is no surprise. Evidence of remnants of durable, skeleton-associated proteins such as collagen are not uncommon in the fossil record long before Tyrannosaurus rex. For example, remains of bivalve ligaments are known from the mid-Ordovician, over 400 million years ago. Other durable but pliable organic materials, such as protist resting […]

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