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Stories
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Asteroid Simulation Reveals How Well Earth's Planetary Defenses Work
Asteroid experts have been simulating a large asteroid heading towards Earth. Friday is the conclusion to the realistic simulation and will reveal how well planetary defense efforts work in this scenario.
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This Week, NASA Is Pretending An Asteroid Is On Its Way To Smack The Earth
A fictitious asteroid is the focus of a realistic exercise, as experts at the Planetary Defense Conference run through how they would respond to news of a looming asteroid strike.
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Health
Scientists Restore Some Function In The Brains Of Dead Pigs
The cells regained a startling amount of function, but the brains didn't have activity linked with consciousness. Ethicists see challenges to assumptions about the irreversible nature of brain death.
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Scientists Have Taken The First Photo Of Something That's Invisible — A Black Hole
The swirling mass around a black hole is called an "event horizon," the point of no return beyond which not even light can escape. Scientists unveiled the first image of this on Wednesday.
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Health
How Mosquitoes Sniff Out Human Sweat To Find Us
Female mosquitoes searching for a meal of blood detect people partly by using a special olfactory receptor to home in on our sweat. The finding could lead to new approaches for better repellents.
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How The First All-Female Spacewalk Could Be Foiled By A Spacesuit
The first all-female spacewalk was called off for want of the right-sized spacesuit. NASA has long been questioned about how its limited number of suit sizes disproportionately affects women.
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Science
SpaceX Readies For Key Test Of Capsule Built To Carry Astronauts Into Space
For years, NASA has had to rely on Russian vehicles to get astronauts to the International Space Station. That could soon change if the flight test of SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule succeeds.
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Science
Hungry Deer May Be Changing How Things Sound In The Forest
Sound travels differently through open fields than the woods. When deer eat up bushes, small trees and other forest plants, it affects the transmission of bird calls and other natural sounds.
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Science
You Don't Look A Day Over 100 Million, Rings Of Saturn
A new study shows that Saturn's rings are only 10 million to 100 million years old, much younger than the planet itself.
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Science
Biological Cartographers Seek To Map The Trillions Of Cells In The Human Body
There's an effort underway to make a new atlas of all the cells in the human body, and to describe each cell type using all the powerful tools of today's genetic technology.