8 Feb 2010 at 2:31pm
Aerial images show the remains of a mysterious ancient civilization in Brazil's Amazon forest.
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8 Feb 2010 at 1:01pm
Editor's Note: Journalist and crew member Kathryn Eident and scientist Jeremy Jacquot are traveling on board the RV Atlantis on a month-long voyage to sample and study nitrogen fixation in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean, among other research projects. This is the first blog post detailing this ongoing voyage of discovery for Scientific American.com.
20 00.0457S x 084'59.9745W [More]
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8 Feb 2010 at 12:01pm
Anyone walking into a smoker's abode can tell you that the traces of tobacco use don't vanish when a cigarette or cigar is extinguished. But just what happens to this "third-hand" smoke once the air has cleared--and can it still be harmful? [More]
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8 Feb 2010 at 12:01pm
Globally, roughly 13 million hectares of forest fall to the blade or fire each year. Such deforestation has long been driven by farmers eking out a slash-and-burn living or loggers using new roads to cut inroads into pristine forest. But now new data appears to show that, at least for the first five years of the 21st century, big block clearings that reflect industrial deforestation have come to dominate, rather than smaller-scale efforts that leave behind long, narrow swaths of cleared land. [More]
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8 Feb 2010 at 11:45am
There's no right answer when someone asks you: " How old do you think I am ?"
Faced with such a dilemma, most of us aim low--erring on the side of flattery rather than honesty. But the truth is, accurately guessing someone's age is a difficult task, perhaps best left to amusement park workers and street performers.
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8 Feb 2010 at 10:38am
Global pandemics, like swine flu, are often caused by viruses that have jumped from animals to people. Scientists in Cameroon are working with local bush meat hunters to monitor this viral transmission.
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8 Feb 2010 at 10:37am
A drug that reverses osteoporosis in mice looks like a promising candidate for treating the human version of the disease.
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8 Feb 2010 at 7:45am
The fifth-to-last mission of the space shuttle program got under way early Monday, as the shuttle Endeavour rocketed up from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida to begin a 13-day mission to the International Space Station . The orbiter launched at 4:14 A.M. (Eastern Standard Time), after a launch opportunity Sunday morning was scrapped due to cloud cover. [More]
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8 Feb 2010 at 7:17am
At one time or other, someone has probably told you “it’s written all over your face.” That’s because your emotions can influence your expressions. Well, a study in the journal Psychological Science suggests that the reverse is also true: that the look on your face may influence your ability to process emotions. [More]
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8 Feb 2010 at 7:00am
A deluge of high-energy physics data is headed toward servers in Geneva, Switzerland, later this month. That's because the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) now says it plans to restart its Large Hadron Collider (LHC) soon for a run that could last as long as two years at a collision energy of seven TeV (tera–electron volts, 3.5 TeV per beam). As CERN ramps up the world's most powerful particle accelerator to operate well beyond its previous best performance , the lab's computer systems must likewise be tuned so they can properly capture and analyze all of this new output. [More]
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