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We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

  1. Physics

    Giant lasers help re-create supernovas’ explosive, mysterious physics

    For the first time, scientists have re-created a type of shock wave that occurs in supernovas.

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  2. Life

    Ogre-faced spiders catch insects out of the air using sound instead of sight

    A new study finds that ogre-faced spiders can hear a surprisingly wide range of sounds.

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  3. Plants

    How Venus flytraps store short-term ‘memories’ of prey

    Glowing Venus flytraps reveal how calcium buildup in the cells of leaves acts as a short-term “memory” that helps the plants identify prey.

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  4. Space

    How do you clean up clingy space dust? Zap it with an electron beam

    An electron beam is the newest addition to a suite of technologies for cleaning sticky and damaging lunar dust off surfaces.

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  5. Environment

    This moth may outsmart smog by learning to like pollution-altered aromas

    In the lab, scientists taught tobacco hawkmoths that a scent changed by ozone is from a favorite flower.

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  6. Animals

    Sea butterflies’ shells determine how the snails swim

    New aquarium videos show that sea butterflies of various shapes and sizes flutter through water differently.

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  7. Space

    A weirdly warped planet-forming disk circles a distant trio of stars

    The bizarre geometry of a disk of gas and dust around three stars in the constellation Orion could be formed by “disk tearing” or a newborn planet.

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  8. Physics

    Toy boats float upside down underneath a layer of levitated liquid

    The upward force of buoyancy keeps objects afloat even in unusual conditions.

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  9. Archaeology

    X-rays reveal what ancient animal mummies keep under wraps

    A new method of 3-D scanning mummified animals reveals life and death details for a snake, a bird and a cat.

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  10. Tech

    Methanol fuel gives this tiny beetle bot the freedom to roam

    A new robot insect uses energy-dense methanol as fuel, not batteries. It could be a blueprint for future search-and-rescue bots with long run times.

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  11. Health & Medicine

    Human sperm don’t swim the way that anyone had thought

    High-speed 3-D microscopy and mathematical analyses reveal that rolling and lopsided tail flicks keep the cells swimming in a straight line.

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  12. Animals

    A South American mouse is the world’s highest-dwelling mammal

    At 6,739 meters above sea level, the yellow-rumped leaf-eared mouse survives low oxygen and freezing conditions atop a dormant volcano.

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