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We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

  1. Tech

    Newfound water risk: Lead-leaching valves

    Hidden elements in drinking-water lines can shed large amounts of lead, a toxic heavy metal. And it's quite legal, even if it does skirt the intent of federal regulations.

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  2. Tech

    Lots of blame over BP well blowout, panel reports

    Crews responsible for drilling BP’s Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico, this past spring, missed plenty of signs that a catastrophic accident was looming, according to a November 17 interim report by the National Academy of Engineering and National Research Council.

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  3. Tech

    BPA: EPA hasn’t identified a safer alternative for thermal paper

    Some researchers and public interest groups have been arguing that BPAfree thermal receipts paper is a preferable alternative, at least from a health perspective. But is it really? That’s what Environmental Protection Agency scientists want to know. And to date, they maintain, the jury’s still out.

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  4. Tech

    Seeing red: Next installment in BPA-paper saga

    Consumers now have a way to identify cash register tape that is free of endocrine-disrupting chemical.

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  5. Tech

    Election projections for science investments

    The November 2, mid-term election results are in (mostly) and pundits are billing it as a historic turnabout. With a divided Congress, passing legislation — never an easy task — risks becoming harder still. And with fiscal austerity having been a leading campaign issue for the newbies, R&D is unlikely to see a major boost in federal funding during the next two years.

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  6. Tech

    Coming soon: Holographic Skype

    The creators of the fastest telepresence system to date predict real-time 3-D TV in a decade.

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  7. Tech

    Plenty of foods harbor BPA, study finds

    Some communities have banned the sale of plastic baby bottles and sippy cups that are manufactured using bisphenol A, a hormone-mimicking chemical. In a few grocery stores, cashiers have already begun donning gloves to avoid handling thermal receipt paper whose BPA-based surface coating may rub off on the fingers. But how’s a family to avoid exposure to this contaminant when it taints the food supply?

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  8. Tech

    Trading places

    As the pace of financial transactions accelerates, researchers look forward to a time when the only limiting factor is the speed of light.

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  9. Tech

    Mind over machine

    People control a computer through electrodes implanted in their brains.

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  10. Tech

    Robots can use coffee as a picker-upper

    A gripper made of a bag of loose grains has advantages over grasping devices that use individual digits.

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  11. Animals

    Doing the wet-dog wiggle

    Hairy animals have evolved to shed water quickly by shaking at the optimal speed for their size.

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  12. Earth

    Contemplating an Arctic oil spill

    The waters off northern Alaska may be “the largest oil province in the United States” after the Gulf, notes Edward Itta, a native of Barrow, Alaska. He is also mayor of the North Slope Borough, an 88,000-square-mile jurisdiction that runs across the upper part of the state. And in a September 27 videoconference with the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling, he tried to impress upon the commissioners just how remote his neck of the tundra is.

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