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  1. Math

    Winning with a Winding Random Walk

    A two-dimensional random walk takes a frustratingly long time to complete a circuit.

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  2. Humans

    From the March 14, 1936, issue

    Moving a giant mirror and deadly neutron rays.

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  3. Humans

    Explore Your Knowledge

    Test your math and science knowledge at the National Center for Education Statistics Web site. Select a test topic and grade level (4th or 8th grade), then see how you do on a set of multiple-choice questions. The questions are from the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). Go to: http://nces.ed.gov/nceskids/eyk/

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  4. Humans

    Science’s New Guard: Winners of annual competition get honors and hefty scholarships

    For her water-quality research project, an 18-year-old from Utah earned top honors among 40 competitors in the final phase of the annual Intel Science Talent Search.

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  5. Materials Science

    The art of the fold

    With DNA origami, researchers can make complex nanostructures.

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  6. 19657

    Unless the writer is deliberately implying an archaic theory of evolution in this article, the statement “Ultrasonic perception may have developed as the frogs (Amolops tormotus) struggled to hear each other . . .” cannot be true. That’s not how natural selection works. John WymoreAlbuquerque, N.M. Frogs that could hear frequencies higher than the water’s […]

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  7. Animals

    Can You Hear Me Now? Frogs in roaring streams use ultrasonic calls

    A small frog living beside Chinese hot springs may be the first amphibian known to use ultrasound in its calls.

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  8. Grown-Up Connections: Mice, monkeys remake brain links as adults

    Two new studies offer a glimpse of extensive remodeling of nerve connections in the brain's outer layer, or cortex, during adulthood in mice and monkeys.

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  9. Materials Science

    Networking with Friends: Nanotech material reconnects severed neurons

    A new material made of nanometer-sized protein particles appears to be able to bridge the gap between severed nerves.

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  10. Earth

    Shaken but Not Stirred: Rock formations reveal past quakes’ size limit

    Dozens of precariously balanced rocks in southern California tell a consistent story that earthquakes at nearby faults in recent millennia haven't exceeded magnitude 7.

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  11. Health & Medicine

    Stent Repair: Coated replacements better than radiation

    To clear clogged stents, the small mesh cylinders that doctors implant to prop open blood vessels, inserting a second, specially-coated stent works better than treatment with radiation.

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  12. 19656

    This article states that the early universe expanded “from subatomic scales to the size of a grapefruit in less than a trillionth of a second” or one picosecond. This would correspond to a velocity many times the speed of light (light only travels about 0.012 inch in a picosecond). How can this statement be reconciled […]

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