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New insights into the brain's waste-removal system could one day help researchers better understand and prevent many brain disorders.
Mihaela Rosu/Getty Images
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Once completed, India's National River Linking Project will transfer an estimated 200 billion cubic meters of water around the country each year.
STRDEL / Stringer/Getty Images
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Synchronous fireflies, known as Photuris frontalis, blink in the woods near the Congaree River on Wednesday, May 15, 2024, in Columbia, S.C.
Sam Wolfe for NPR
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NASA's Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope is set to launch in 2027. This innovative telescope is designed to investigate long-standing astronomical mysteries, such as dark energy, the force behind the universe's expansion.
NASA
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Launched in 1990, a major goal of the Human Genome Project was to sequence the human genome as fully as possible. In 2003, project scientists unveiled a genome sequence that accounted for over 90% of the human genome — as complete as possible for the technology of the time.
Darryl Leja, NHGRI/Flickr
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Some ants, like the Florida carpenter ant, treat the injured legs of comrades, and will even perform medical amputations when necessary.
Zen Rial/Getty Images
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A simulation of the formation of dark matter structures from the early universe until today.
Ralf Kaehler/NASA/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, American Museum of Natural History
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Ralf Kaehler/NASA/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, American Museum of Natural History
Noise pollution from human activities can have negative impacts on our health—from sleep disturbances and stress to increases in the risk of heart disease and diabetes.
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Discovered in 2016, a roughly Earth-sized planet orbiting our nearest neighboring star might be habitable. This artist's impression shows a view of the surface of the planet Proxima b orbiting the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the solar system.
ESO/M. Kornmesser
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Reconstruction of a Lokiceratops rangiformis being surprised by a crocodilian in the 78-million-year-old swamps that would have existed in what is now northern Montana.
Andrey Atuchin/Museum of Evolution
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Freelance science writer Sadie Dingfelder is the author of the new book Do I Know You?, which explores human sight, memory and imagination.
Little, Brown Spark, an imprint of Little, Brown and Company
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Little, Brown Spark, an imprint of Little, Brown and Company
A red giant star and white dwarf orbit each other in this animation of a nova similar to T Coronae Borealis.
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
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Ferris Jabr's book Becoming Earth: How Our Planet Came to Life examines the ways life and Earth have shaped each other.
Lucas Heinrich/Random House
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About ten years ago, science writer Ferris Jabr started contemplating Earth as a living planet rather than a planet with life on it. It began when he learned that the Amazon rainforest doesn't simply receive the rain that defines it; rather, it helps generate that rain. The Amazon does that by launching bits of biological confetti into the atmosphere that, in turn, seed clouds. After learning this, he began looking for other ways life changes its environment. That led to his new book Becoming Earth: How Our Planet Came to Life. He talks to host Regina G. Barber about examples of life transforming the planet — from changing the color of the sky to altering the weather.
Earth is more than a planet with life on it. It's a "living planet"