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  1. Chemistry

    Multiple Motions: Applied electrons make molecules vibrate and move

    A new technique enables scientists to choreograph individual molecules to vibrate, break bonds, and move on a surface in specified ways.

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  2. Earth

    Count Down: Chemicals linked to inferior sperm

    New data suggest that typical exposures to chemicals called phthalates are associated with reduced fertility in men, but the specific phthalates they finger aren't those that researchers most expected to cause problems.

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  3. Humans

    From the May 27, 1933, issue

    CRYSTAL WONDERLAND You can see all these things through a microscope, as scientists and laymen have been seeing them for many years. But the way into this Lilliputia of the waters is being made even easier for you through the amazing artistry in glass of a worker at the American Museum of Natural History in […]

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  4. Humans

    Ring World

    Ever wonder what it might be like to live on a doughnut-shaped world? NASA has created a Web page that gives you a sense of what life would be like in a ringlike structure out in space, where there is no gravity except the centrifugal force generated by the structure’s spin. Simulation requires a Java-enabled […]

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  5. Math

    Deciphering the Wrinkles of Crumpled Sheets

    Crumpling is a ubiquitous, though poorly understood, physical phenomenon. It occurs when a fender absorbs the energy of a car crash, when Earth’s crust buckles at the interface between colliding tectonic plates to create a mountain range, when a blood cell’s membrane folds to allow the cell to pass through a narrow capillary, when a […]

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  6. Humans

    Test Flight: Young scientists earn—and spread—their wings

    A century after two brothers from Ohio launched the first powered aircraft, more than 1,200 students from 31 countries descended on Cleveland to participate in the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair.

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  7. Chemistry

    Detecting Lead: Sensor changes color for toxic metal

    A new sensor using gold nanoparticles and tailor-made DNA strands offers simple and reliable detection of lead in paint.

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  8. Planetary Science

    Springtime on Neptune: Images hint at seasonal changes on distant planet

    Belying its location in the deep freeze of the outer solar system, Neptune may undergo a change of seasons.

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  9. Scripted Brains: Learning to read evokes hemispheric trade-off

    From childhood through adolesence, the process of learning to read involves an amplification of specific types of left-brain activity and a dampening of right-brain responses, a new brain-imaging study finds.

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  10. Bad Dancers: Childhood chills give bees six left feet

    Honeybees kept just a bit cool when young grow up looking normal but dancing badly, which impedes their ability to communicate with other bees.

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  11. Health & Medicine

    Breathe Easier: Lung surgery aids some emphysema patients

    Surgery to remove diseased portions of the upper lungs can help emphysema patients breathe more efficiently, depending on the patient's health and where the damaged tissues are.

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  12. Earth

    A Dam Shame? Project may slam China’s biodiversity

    When the Three Gorges Dam begins to impound the waters of the Yangtze River in China later this year, dozens of mountains and other elevated areas upstream will become islands—an outcome that will probably devastate the rich diversity of species now living along the river.

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