Uncategorized

  1. Materials Science

    Fine Fabric: New, fast way to make sheets of nanotubes

    Scientists have come up with a way to efficiently produce thin, transparent sheets of carbon nanotubes that are several meters long.

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  2. Earth

    Inhaling salt raises blood pressure

    People who work in environments where large amounts of salt particles hang in the air may literally breathe their way to high blood pressure.

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  3. Health & Medicine

    Tracking busy genes to get at cancer

    By identifying which genes are overactive in certain breast tumors, researchers have discovered a genetic signature that could help doctors predict if and when a woman's cancer might spread to her lungs.

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  4. Tech

    Roughing up counterfeiters

    A new anticounterfeiting scheme generates unique, reproducible identity codes that could be used to authenticate passports, credit cards, and other items on the basis of inherent, microscopic irregularities in the items' surfaces.

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  5. Astronomy

    Big sky

    The biggest survey of the heavens just got bigger when the Sloan Digital Sky Survey received a 3-year extension.

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  6. Health & Medicine

    Potent Medicine

    Drugs now used to treat erectile dysfunction might soon assume multiple roles in managing heart disease and other conditions, including some that affect women and infants.

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  7. Animals

    Myth of the Bad-Nose Birds

    Even though a lot of people still believe birds have no sense of smell, certain species rely on their noses for important jobs, such as finding food and shelter, and maybe even a mate.

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  8. 19585

    I wonder if any of the researchers had a pet bird. My Alexandrine parakeet can smell beer or ice cream from two rooms away—She screams for her share. Bruce DowRidge Manor, Fla.

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  9. Math

    Strange Orbits

    Orbiting bodies can follow weird trajectories, from figure-eight loops to complex, interlocked paths.

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  10. Humans

    From the August 10, 1935, issue

    A silencer for artificial lightning, a trigger for epilepsy, and light that keeps plants from growing.

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  11. Archaeology

    The Iceman Cometh

    A Web site maintained by Italy’s South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology offers an illustrated look at scientific efforts to understand the life and death of Oetzi the Iceman, who perished in Europe’s Alps more than 5,000 years ago only to be discovered in mummified form by hikers in 1991. Explore Oetzi’s clothing, equipment, and tattoos, […]

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  12. Paleontology

    Just for Frills?

    The more that paleontologists scrutinize some dinosaurs' plates, frills, and other anatomical oddities, the more they suspect that the rationale behind these features is simply the need to be recognizably different.

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