Uncategorized

  1. Computing

    Straining for Speed

    Hitting fundamental limits on how small they can make certain structures within semiconductor transistors, chip makers are deforming the silicon crystals from which those transistors are made to eke out some extra speed.

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  2. Astronomy

    Finding the star that was

    Sifting through archival images, astronomers have identified the star whose explosive demise was recorded by telescopes last year.

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  3. Chemistry

    Radical molecule could produce plastic magnets

    A team of chemists has synthesized an unusual organic molecule that could lead to cheaper and lighter magnets.

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  4. Physics

    Nuclear pudding—to go

    Moving at nearly the speed of light, atomic nuclei hurtling through a huge particle collider may become mostly dense, flattened puddings of nuclear particles known as gluons.

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  5. Health & Medicine

    Putting the brakes on toxic shock

    Scientists have discovered the cascade of molecular events that underpins many cases of toxic shock syndrome.

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  6. Physics

    New supergas debuts

    A cloud of ultracold potassium atoms, manipulated by means of a magnetic field, has coalesced into a new super form of matter called a fermionic condensate.

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  7. Health & Medicine

    Some T cells may be a fetus’ best friend

    While pregnant, mice overproduce a kind of T cell that reins in other immune cells that might target the fetus.

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  8. Planetary Science

    A view of Mars, European style

    Although the Mars lander Beagle 2 is presumed dead, its mother craft, the European Space Agency's Mars Express, has transmitted its first data from a polar orbit about the Red Planet.

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  9. Math

    Computing on a Cellular Scale

    The behavior of leaf pores resembles that of mathematical systems known as cellular automata.

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  10. Math

    Computation’s New Leaf

    Plants in which large numbers of simple units interact with one another appear to compute how to coordinate the actions of their cells effectively.

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  11. Astronomy

    Bare-Naked Galaxies

    A decade's worth of observations is spotlighting how the vast sea of gas surrounding a cluster of galaxies can alter the shape of a galaxy plowing through it.

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  12. Tech

    The rat in the hat

    A compact positron-emission tomography (PET) brain scanner may make possible studies of awake rats that link brain functions and behaviors.

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