Reviews & Previews
Science Visualized
Astronomy
Solar explosion forms ‘Canyon of Fire’
Just when the sun was looking especially lethargic, a violent eruption left behind a vast chasm of superheated gas on the solar surface.
Notebook
Physics
Ripple effect
If you want ripples in your icicles, just add salt. This recipe comes from physicists reporting in the October New Journal of Physics.
Features
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Science slowdown
The recent federal government shutdown, which furloughed more than 800,000 government workers and may have cost the nation as much as $24 billion, has sent ripples through the nation’s scientific research enterprise.
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The Inconstant Gardener
Microglia, the same immune cells that help sculpt the developing brain, may do damage later in life .
More Stories from the November 30, 2013 issue
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AnthropologyHunting boosts lizard numbers in Australian desert
Reptiles prefer to live in places aboriginal people have burned.
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Quantum Physics
Single electron caught in action
Researchers have found a way to isolate the behavior of one particle.
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LifeScorpion venom kills pain in mice
Toxin works with nerve proteins to block distress signals’ journey to brain.
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EnvironmentMercury contamination in California to last 10,000 years
Toxic remnants of gold rush will seep into San Francisco area waterways for millennia.
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ChemistryFloating beads of water act as tiny test tubes
Chemists exploit pH and ion charge in superheated water drops to create nanoparticles.
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Health & Medicine
Antibodies show progress against HIV
Proteins suppress disease in monkeys, but don’t cure it.
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Genetics
People’s genes welcome their microbes
In mice and humans, genetic variants seem to control the bacterial mix on and in bodies.
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Health & MedicineEvidence mounts for bat origins of SARS
New viruses in the mammals closely match the human form of the infection.
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CosmologyCandidates for dark matter particles bite the dust
Most sensitive experiment yet determines that earlier findings were just artifacts.
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CosmologyDark energy search gets murkier
Supernova measurements muddle scientists’ efforts to explain universe’s accelerating expansion.
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LifeSteroids boost muscles for the long haul
Experiments in mice suggest that effects don’t end when doping does.
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AstronomyBillions and billions of Earth-sized planets call Milky Way home
Using Kepler data, astronomers estimate that a sizeable fraction of the galaxy’s sunlike stars have Earth-sized planets that could support liquid water.
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Planetary ScienceMeteor explosions like this year’s Russian fireball more common than thought
Chelyabinsk-sized rocks may come to Earth every 30 years, on average.
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PhysicsCruise through a collider
Now anyone can tour the Large Hadron Collider and other CERN experiments in 360-degree photo panoramas online.
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LifeFungal fight club
Combat between fungal individuals is a bit like war between heaps of spaghetti.
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Health & MedicineDrug use on the rise in older set
The use of illicit drugs has declined slightly over the last decade among teens but is growing more common in people over age 50.
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EnvironmentWorld’s worst polluted
A new report by Green Cross Switzerland and the Blacksmith Institute lists places posing the greatest risk to human health.