Vol. 184 No. #6
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More Stories from the September 21, 2013 issue

  1. Earth

    Magma can speed to the surface, powering volcanoes

    Fast ascent of molten rock could help scientists predict eruptions.

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  2. Neuroscience

    Caffeine shakes up growing mouse brains

    When pregnant mice consumed caffeine, their offspring had altered neurons and faulty memory.

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  3. Health & Medicine

    Vaccine protects against malaria in early test

    A series of shots enables volunteers to fend off a live infection by the disease-causing parasite.

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  4. Humans

    DNA reveals details of the peopling of the Americas

    Migrants came in three distinct waves that interbred once in the New World.

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  5. Health & Medicine

    Racial homogeneity in early childhood may affect brain

    In lab study, kids who lived in single-race orphanages have difficulty interpreting emotions on faces with foreign features.

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  6. Psychology

    Mental disorder seen as ‘badness, not sickness’

    Health workers tend to consider borderline personality disorder a tag for patients who are difficult or impossible to treat.

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  7. Animals

    Antarctic waters may shelter wrecks from shipworms

    Ocean currents and polar front form 'moat' that keeps destructive mollusks at bay.

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  8. Health & Medicine

    Clues emerge to explain allergic asthma

    Tests in mice reveal that allergens can trigger inflammation by cleaving a clotting protein.

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  9. Psychology

    Highlights from the American Sociological Association annual meeting

    Research on social media's reluctant users, marital ideals and single parenthood and intimate victims of cybernastiness presented August 10-13 in New York City.

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  10. Planetary Science

    NASA gives up on fixing Kepler

    Space telescope’s days as a premier planet hunter are over.

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  11. Materials Science

    Toylike blocks make lightweight, strong structures

    Bucking trend toward reducing numbers of parts, MIT engineers suggest building planes from thousands of identical pieces.

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  12. Life

    Years or decades later, flu exposure still prompts immunity

    New forms of influenza viruses can spur production of antibodies to past pandemics in people who lived through them.

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  13. Health & Medicine

    Power of sugar may come from the mind

    Only people who believe exertion zaps willpower get a boost from glucose.

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  14. Ecosystems

    Aging European forests full to the brim with carbon

    Trees' capacity to sequester carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is dwindling.

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  15. Psychology

    Blood marker may predict suicide

    People who killed themselves had higher levels of a gene involved in cell death.

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  16. Animals

    Birds know road speed limits

    Crows, house sparrows and other species judge when to flee the asphalt by average traffic rates rather than an oncoming car's speed.

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  17. Earth

    Millions in China at risk of exposure to arsenic-tainted water

    Simulation shows possibly contaminated areas and predicts populations at risk.

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  18. Earth

    Breakups maintain barchan dune fields, somehow

    Two new theories try to explain how the crescent-shaped sand mountains persist.

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  19. Life

    Bats can carry MERS

    DNA of a deadly respiratory virus has been found in a Saudi Arabian mammal.

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  20. Life

    Tiny human almost-brains made in lab

    Stem cells arrange themselves into a version of the most complex human organ.

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  21. Health & Medicine

    Don’t stand so close to me

    Personal space has a measurable boundary, a study suggests.

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  22. Animals

    Seeking the loneliest whale

    An enigmatic whale roams the North Pacific, and next year Bruce Mate will lead a monthlong expedition to find it.

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  23. Science & Society

    The Nazi and the Psychiatrist

    Hermann Goring, Dr. Douglas M. Kelley, and a Fatal Meeting of Minds at the End of WWII by Jack El-Hai.

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  24. Animals

    Collision Course

    The tales of two ornithologists trying to prevent birds colliding with windows highlight the obstacles facing applied biology.

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  25. Humans

    The Tune Wreckers

    People who can’t carry a tune, or can but think they can’t, are a rich resource for researchers studying musical ability.

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  26. Tech

    Letters to the editor

    Readers respond to glowing plants, fracking worries and space hookups.

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  27. Environment

    Grain alcohol in gasoline?

    An excerpt from the September 21, 1963, issue of Science News Letter.

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  28. Psychology

    Behind the Shock Machine

    The Untold Story of the Notorious Milgram Psychology Experiments by Gina Perry.

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