Vol. 169 No. #19
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More Stories from the May 13, 2006 issue

  1. Astronomy

    Crust on a star

    By analyzing X rays generated by the rumblings of a neutron star 40,000 light-years from Earth, astronomers have estimated the thickness of the dense star's crust.

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  2. Health & Medicine

    An aging protein?

    The defective protein that, when defective, causes a premature-aging disease may also play a role in normal aging.

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  3. Anthropology

    Ancient islanders get a leg up

    A new analysis of bones from a tiny evolutionary cousin of people found on a Pacific island indicates that these late Stone Age individuals carried a lot of weight on short frames and had extremely strong legs.

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  4. Anthropology

    Neandertals take out their small blades

    Excavations of Neandertal artifacts have yielded a trove of thin, double-edged stone blades that researchers usually regard as the work of Stone Age people who lived much later.

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  5. Anthropology

    Digging up debate in a French cave

    A scientific debate has broken out over whether a French cave excavated more than 50 years ago contains evidence of separate Stone Age occupations by Neandertals and modern humans.

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  6. Anthropology

    Making sacrifices in Stone Age societies

    A half-dozen burials at sites in Europe and western Asia dating to between 27,000 and 23,000 years ago provide clues to possible human sacrifices.

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  7. Humans

    Legal Debate: Assumptions on medical malpractice called into question

    The notion that many medical-practice lawsuits are frivolous and intended to generate undeserved riches for their plaintiffs and lawyers isn't borne out in a new study.

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  8. Tech

    Speed Bump: Tip’s tricks sort DNA, write at nanoscale

    An atomic-force microscope tip has been transformed into a microinstrument for sorting DNA and depositing nanostructures by means of cleverly applied voltages that propel molecules along the tip's surface.

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  9. Sharing the Health: Cells from unusual mice make others cancerfree

    Immune-cell transplants from an extraordinary strain of mice that resists cancer can pass this trait to mice that aren't as lucky.

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  10. Earth

    Blast Survivors: Fragments of asteroid found in ancient crater

    Pieces of an asteroid that blasted a 70-kilometer-wide crater in southern Africa millions of years ago may have been found intact inside the thick layer of once-molten rock that the impact left behind.

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  11. Health & Medicine

    Sleight of Herb: Black cohosh mislabeled in medicinal products

    A sizable fraction of the herbal supplements marketed as preparations of black cohosh contains none of that North American plant.

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  12. Planetary Science

    Hubble eyes Jupiter’s second red spot

    Hubble Space Telescope images are providing astronomers with the sharpest views yet of a new red spot on Jupiter.

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  13. Animals

    Monkey Business: Specimen of new species shakes up family tree

    The new monkey species found in Tanzania last year may be unusual enough to need a new genus, the first one created for monkeys in nearly 80 years.

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  14. Anthropology

    Cattle’s Call of the Wild: Domestication may hold complex genetic tale

    A new investigation of DNA that was obtained from modern cattle and from fossils of their ancient, wild ancestors challenges the idea that herding and farming groups in the Near East domesticated cattle about 11,000 years ago.

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  15. Health & Medicine

    Predicting Parkinson’s

    Scientists are searching for ways to detect the earliest signs in the brain of Parkinson's disease.

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  16. Plants

    Nectar: The First Soft Drink

    Plants have long competed with one another to lure animals in for a sip of their sweet formulations.

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  17. Humans

    Letters from the May 13, 2006, issue of Science News

    Now hear this Unless the writer is deliberately implying an archaic theory of evolution in “Can you hear me now? Frogs in roaring streams use ultrasonic calls” (SN: 3/18/06 p. 165), the statement “Ultrasonic perception may have developed as the frogs (Amolops tormotus) struggled to hear each other . . .” cannot be true. That’s […]

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