Vol. 205 No. 5
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More Stories from the March 9, 2024 issue

  1. Planetary Science

    NASA’s OSIRIS-REx nabbed over 120 grams of space rocks from asteroid Bennu

    After being stymied by two stuck screws, NASA finally accessed a trove of Bennu asteroid bits. Mission scientist Harold Connolly tells what’s next.

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  2. Planetary Science

    Saturn’s ‘Death Star’ moon might contain a hidden ocean

    A fresh look at Cassini data reveals slight changes in the tiny moon’s orbit that suggest the presence of a vast ocean beneath the satellite’s icy shell.

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  3. Artificial Intelligence

    How do babies learn words? An AI experiment may hold clues

    Using relatively little data, audio and video taken from a baby’s perspective, an AI program learned the names of objects the baby encountered.

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  4. Paleontology

    A rare 3-D tree fossil may be the earliest glimpse at a forest understory

    The 350-million-year-old tree, which was wider than it was tall thanks to a mop-top crown of 3-meter-long leaves, would look at home in a Dr. Seuss book.

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  5. Health & Medicine

    Newfound immune cells are responsible for long-lasting allergies

    A specialized type of immune cell appears primed to make the type of antibodies that lead to allergies, two research groups report.

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  6. Neuroscience

    A new device let a man sense temperature with his prosthetic hand

    A device that can be integrated into prosthetic hands capitalizes on phantom sensations to enable users to sense hot and cold.

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  7. Science & Society

    Social media harms teens’ mental health, mounting evidence shows. What now?

    Recent studies suggest a causal link between teen social media use and reduced well-being. Now, some researchers are looking into possible mechanisms.

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  8. Archaeology

    This Stone Age wall may have led Eurasian reindeer to their doom

    Hunter-gatherers living 10,000 years ago in what is now Germany probably used the wall to trap reindeer in a nearby lake.

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  9. Archaeology

    These South American cave paintings reveal a surprisingly old tradition

    Radiocarbon dates point to an artistic design practice that began in Patagonia almost 8,200 years ago, several millennia earlier than previously recorded.

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  10. Life

    Megalodon, the largest shark ever, may have been a long, slender giant

    The ancient shark is typically imagined with the scaled-up stout frame of a modern great white. But in life, the giant may have been more elongated.

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  11. Planetary Science

    An asteroid may have exploded over Antarctica about 2.5 million years ago

    Tiny spherules of rock found in Antarctic ice may point to the oldest known “airburst,” or midair disintegration of an incoming asteroid.

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  12. Physics

    50 years ago, superconductors were warming up

    Superconducting temperatures have risen by about 250 degrees since the 1970s, but are still too cold to enable practical technologies.

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