Science Bulletins: WISE to Scan the Infrared Sky
NASA's latest space telescope-the Wide Field Infrared Explorer, or WISE-recently took its first images of the sky around Earth in infrared light. In its initial ...
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Science Bulletins: Interferometry—Sizing Up the Stars
If technology, cost, and terrain permitted, scientists seeking key data on stars in our galaxy would have loved to construct a behemoth 330 m wide telescope atop ...
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Science Bulletins: Curiosity Rover Heads for Mars
The biggest and most technically advanced rover to date is on its way to Mars. In the latest Astro Bulletin from the Museum's Science Bulletins program, follow ...
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Science Bulletins: Tracing the First Americans
When and where did humans first enter the Americas—and what routes did they travel to colonize the continents? These are big questions for scientists studying ...
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Science Bulletins: Bee Deaths Linked to Common Pesticides
Several recent studies have questioned whether exposure to common pesticides might be impairing bee performance and contributing to the observed ...
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Science Bulletins: New Horizons Brings Pluto Into Focus
Tiny, faraway Pluto was first spied in 1930. This icy world is one of thousands of rocky bodies that make up the Kuiper Belt, a ring that circles our solar system ...
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Science Bulletins: Introducing the Denisovans
New research led by scientists at Germany's Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology confirms that a 40000-year-old finger bone and tooth belong to a ...
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Science Bulletins: Monitoring Mount Etna—Magma on the Move
Scientists in Sicily are collecting an enormous amount of data to monitor moving magma inside Mt. Etna, one of the most active volcanoes in the world. Nearly a ...
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Science Bulletins: Super Corals—Understanding the Science (3 of 3)
Marine biologists in Hawaii investigate so-called “super corals,” which thrive even as ocean temperatures rise. In Understanding the Science, watch scientists in ...
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Science Bulletins: Geologists on Mars
In March 2004, two NASA explorers discovered firm evidence that water once flowed on Mars—perhaps enough water to harbor life. Science Bulletins is a ...
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Science Bulletins: Focus on Mars
This month's Astro News features a roundup of Mars stories: • A high-resolution map of Mars's surface shows geologic structures in more detail than ever before.
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Science Bulletins: Reading the Rocks—The Search for Oil in ANWR
In 1980 an act of Congress set aside nearly 20 million acres of Alaska's North Slope tundra to create the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). Less than 100 ...
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Science Bulletins: Beyond Our Solar System—Searching for Extrasolar Planets
Astrophysicists are discovering new extrasolar planets—those outside our Solar System—almost daily. NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope (originally called SIRTF ...
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Science Bulletins: The Rise of Fire
Wildfires, whether ignited by lightning or people, show global patterns that are visible to satellites. In the United States, fire is increasing: on average, millions ...
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Science Bulletins: Protecting Wildlife in a Changing Climate
As the global climate changes, wild animals are shifting where they live—even beyond the protected areas that are crucial to their survival. This visualization ...
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Science Bulletins: SOFIA—Stars and the Space Between
By sending an infrared telescope to altitudes of 12000 meters (40000 feet) and higher, NASA and the German Aerospace Center (DLR) conduct astronomical ...
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Science Bulletins: Hubble Space Telescope—25 Years and Counting
Few of NASA's telescopes have captured the public imagination like Hubble, with its spectacular views of distant galaxies, supernovas, and nebulas. The first ...
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Science Bulletins: Water Underground
Texas endured its driest year ever in 2011, and southern Alabama and Georgia have continued to suffer serious drought in 2012. Climate change is predicted to ...
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Science Bulletins: Keeling's Curve – The Story of CO2
As the leading greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide is one of the atmosphere's most closely watched ingredients. The scrutiny began in 1958, when a young ...
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Science Bulletins: Deep-Sea Cephalopods Hide Using Light
Many kinds of octopus, cuttlefish, and squid are masters of disguise. They conceal themselves using chromatophores—specialized skin cells that hold pigment ...
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Science Bulletins: On the Hunt for a Balanced Diet
Biologists had long assumed that predators were more concerned with the quantity of their food than the quality, but a recent study shows that nutritional value ...
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Science Bulletins: Down and Dirty Biodiversity
The soils in tundra, grasslands, tropical forests are very different, but they have one thing in common; they all host an astounding diversity of life. Inhabiting these ...
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Science Bulletins: New Fossils Recast Tyrannosaur Evolution
Fossils of two never-before-seen species of tyrannosaur are overturning long-held ideas about the diversity and evolution of this family of dinosaurs. One is an ...
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Science Bulletins: Storing CO2 to Protect the Climate
What are humans to do with the billions of tons of carbon dioxide we release into the atmosphere? Since 1996, an experiment in the North Sea has been ...
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Science Bulletins: The Rise of Oxygen
Follow geologists as they hunt for, pickaxe, and test rock samples from the 2.5 billion year old Huronian Supergroup, a sedimentary formation in Ontario, Canada ...
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Science Bulletins: Bat Succeeds at Part-Time Pollination
Many plants and their pollinators co-evolved specialized adaptations that aid pollination. But researchers recently found that a species of desert bat that is not ...
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Science Bulletins: Lighting Up Chandra’s X-Ray Views
Chandra, the biggest X-ray space telescope to date, detects high-energy emissions from very hot regions of the universe. Since launching in 1999, Chandra has ...
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Science Bulletins: Habitat Corridors Benefit Isolated Plants
In many open habitats, more than one-third of seeds are wind-dispersed. For isolated patches of plants, the interaction of wind with the landscape can determine ...
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Science Bulletins: Hubble Spots Star Factories
A survey of the oldest objects in the Universe has revealed a multitude of dwarf galaxies that are producing stars at a dizzying pace. Using the infrared vision of ...
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Science Bulletins: Jupiter's Shrinking Storm
Jupiter is a planet of extremes—it's the biggest in our solar system, it spins the fastest, it hosts the most moons, and it has the most turbulent atmosphere. But one ...
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Science Bulletins: In Search of Wild Variety
To help build the catalog of life, biologists at AMNH search the globe for species that have never been scientifically described. Discover seven of these new ...
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Science Bulletins: Supramap Tracks Diseases as They Evolve
As pathogens mutate they can become more dangerous, developing resistance to drugs or migrating to new host species. Tracking mutations helps scientists ...
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Science Bulletins: The Cosmic Microwave Background—A New View from the South Pole
The icy South Pole desert is a harsh and desolate landscape in which few life-forms can flourish. But the extreme cold and isolation are perfect for astronomical ...
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Science Bulletins: Lake Mead: Empty by 2021?
Scientists from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography have analyzed the current and predicted "water budget"—the amount of water going in and coming ...
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Science Bulletins: Oil Spill Poses Risks to Gulf Ecosystems
When the Deepwater Horizon offshore oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico exploded on April 20, 2010, it set off an oil spill that may exceed the extent and impact of the ...
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Science Bulletins: First Glimpse of a Distant Star's Polar Flip
Every 11 years our Sun's magnetic north and south reverse positions; after another 11 years they rotate back to their original places. For the first time, this "polar ...
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Science Bulletins: Gamma-Ray Bursts—Flashes in the Sky
Gamma-ray bursts—flashes of intense radiation in space that are often just seconds long—were accidentally discovered in the 1960's by satellites built to ...
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Science Bulletins: Impact! Tracking Near-Earth Asteroids
Collisions between space objects are a vital part of the evolution of our Solar System. Most of Earth's impact craters have been wiped away due to plate tectonics ...
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Science Bulletins: Chernobyl's Birds Adapt to Radiation
The Chernobyl nuclear disaster had a high ecological cost, with local wildlife suffering from physical deformities and reduced populations. The site has since ...
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Science Bulletins: New Tools Search for Lyme Disease in Brain
Lyme disease is caused by a bite of a tick infected with the bacteria Borrelia bergdorferi. Although it is common in some parts of the United States, it can be ...
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Discovery of the ozone hole | Natural History Museum
Jonathan Shanklin, Meteorologist at the British Antarctic Survey, was one of the team that discovered the ozone hole in 1985. In this video, Jonathan reveals ...
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Science Bulletins: Bilingual Brain 'Switch' Found
A recent study led by University College London neuroscientist Cathy Price reveals how the human brain is uniquely adapted to manage multiple languages.
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