Vol. 192 No. 7
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More Stories from the October 28, 2017 issue

  1. Animals

    This newfound hermit crab finds shelter in corals, not shells

    A newly discovered hermit crab takes its cue from peanut worms and uses walking corals as a permanent shelter.

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  2. Paleontology

    Shhhh! Some plant-eating dinos snacked on crunchy critters

    Scientists studying dinosaur poop found that some duck-billed dinos cheated on their vegetarian diets by snacking on crustaceans.

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  3. Health & Medicine

    From day one, a frog’s developing brain is calling the shots

    Frog brains help organize muscle and nerve patterns early in development.

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  4. Animals

    To test sleep, researchers don’t let sleeping jellyfish lie

    Upside-down jellyfish are the first known animals without a brain to enter a sleeplike state.

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  5. Tech

    Origami outfits help these bots change tasks swiftly

    These robots change shape by slipping into different origami exoskeletons.

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  6. Physics

    Trio of detectors tracks gravitational waves to their home

    LIGO and Virgo spot spacetime ripples in their first joint detection.

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  7. Genetics

    Ancient boy’s DNA pushes back date of earliest humans

    Genes from South African fossils suggest humans emerged close to 300,000 years ago.

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  8. Genetics

    A mutation may explain the sudden rise in birth defects from Zika

    A mutation in a protein that helps Zika exit cells may play a big role in microcephaly.

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  9. Climate

    Tropical forests have flipped from sponges to sources of carbon dioxide

    Analyses of satellite images suggest that degraded forests now release more carbon than they store.

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  10. Oceans

    Castaway critters rafted to U.S. shores aboard Japan tsunami debris

    Researchers report finding 289 living Japanese marine species that washed up on American shores on debris from the 2011 East Japan earthquake and tsunami.

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  11. Quantum Physics

    Quantum video chat links scientists on two different continents

    A Sept. 29 ultrasecure quantum video chat demonstrates the potential for quantum communications across the globe.

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  12. Life

    Cracking the body clock code wins trio a Nobel Prize

    Circadian clock researchers take home the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine.

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  13. Astronomy

    Why it’s good news that Pluto doesn’t have rings

    The New Horizons team searched for rings around Pluto, and found nothing. That suggests the spacecraft’s next destination might be ring-free too.

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  14. Genetics

    Ancient humans avoided inbreeding by networking

    Ancient DNA expands foragers’ social, mating networks.

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  15. Agriculture

    Much of the world’s honey now contains bee-harming pesticides

    A controversial group of chemicals called neonicotinoids has a global impact, tests of honey samples show.

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  16. Science & Society

    Economics Nobel nudges behavioral economist into the limelight

    Behavioral economist Richard Thaler started influential investigations of behavioral economics, which earned him the 2017 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.

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  17. Climate

    ‘Killer Hurricanes’ reconstructs the past to predict storms of the future

    Geologists find clues to the future of deadly hurricanes, written in stone and sand, in the new NOVA documentary “Killer Hurricanes.”

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  18. Tech

    50 years ago, engineers tried catching commercial planes in nets

    Fifty years ago, aviation experts tried helping commercial aircraft come to a stop during landing by catching them in massive nets. The idea crash-landed for commercial flights, but it’s still used in the military.

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  19. Paleontology

    A baby ichthyosaur’s last meal revealed

    A new look at an old fossil shows that some species of baby ichthyosaurs may have dined on squid.

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  20. Physics

    New physics books don’t censor the math behind reality

    Special Relativity and Classical Theory and The Physical World offer deep dives into physical reality’s mathematical foundations.

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  21. Health & Medicine

    About 1 in 5 teens has had a concussion

    Almost 20 percent of U.S. teens have had at least one diagnosed concussion in the past, an analysis of a 2016 national survey finds.

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