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Nov 30, 2009

Snowflakes on Christmas Cards Drawn Wrong

In pop culture depictions, snowflakes are usually drawn inaccurately, an expert now says. Snowflakes are six-cornered, rather than the four-, five- and eight-cornered crystals typically depicted in children's books, Christmas cards and even in an ad for a science magazine. Thomas Koop of Bielefeld University in Germany noticed the frosty...

Nov 30, 2009

The First American Women in Antarctica

This Behind the Scenes article was provided to LiveScience in partnership with the National Science Foundation. In the spring of 1969, Terry Tickhill Terrell was 19 and an undergraduate chemistry major at Ohio State University, bored with her lab work and restless. She had never traveled more than 250 miles...

Nov 30, 2009

9 Science Stories We Loved, and Hated, in 2009

The best science answers tough questions, and so some of the hardest-hitting discoveries often elicit controversy, ruffling the feathers of readers and sometimes even other scientists. Here are some of the most loved and hated science stories of the year. Boys' issues are neglected. Growing up can be tough for...

Nov 30, 2009

The 9 Strangest News Stories of 2009

Weirdness takes many forms, and 2009 had its share of weird events. Here's a look back at the strangest news stories of the year drawn from the realms of pseudoscience, the paranormal, media hype, outright lies and the just plain strange. 9. Trailcam Transforms Hiker into Bigfoot When some hunters...

Oct 31, 2009

Giant Crack in Africa Will Create a New Ocean

A 35-mile rift in the desert of Ethiopia will likely become a new ocean eventually, researchers now confirm. The crack, 20 feet wide in spots, opened in 2005 and some geologists believed then that it would spawn a new ocean. But that view was controversial, and the rift had not...

Oct 31, 2009

The Many Mysteries of Neanderthals

Editor's Note: This is Part 6 in a 10-part LiveScience series on the origin, evolution and future of the human species and the mysteries that remain to be solved. We are currently the only human species alive, but as recently as maybe 24,000 years ago another one walked the earth...

Oct 31, 2009

Orwellian or Green? Carbon Taxes on Individuals

Vote below. But first, this news ... The Dutch government wants to tax residents for every mile they drive to cut down on carbon dioxide emissions. The new green tax would replace taxes on the sales and ownership of autos, AFP reports. Each vehicle will be equipped with a GPS...

Oct 31, 2009

Sea Star Swells With Tides

A species of sea star has figured out a novel way of keeping cool on rocky shorelines. The animal literally soaks up chilly water during high tides to protect itself from the blazing temperatures that persist when the tide goes out, scientists announce today. Sea stars live at the ocean...

Oct 31, 2009

Islands Make Waves ... In the Sky

Islands don't move much, but they can still make waves. In fact they sometimes make dramatic waves … in the clouds. In a new satellite image, the South Sandwich island chain triggers a series of airborne waves. The V-shaped waves fan out to the east, visible as white clouds over...

Sep 30, 2009

Lamp Runs on Human Blood

What if, every time you wanted to switch on a light, you had to bleed? Would you think twice before illuminating the room, and in turn, using up energy? That's the idea behind the blood lamp, invented by Mike Thomspon, an English designer based in The Netherlands. The lamp contains...

Sep 30, 2009

Knuckle-Cracking Gets (Ig) Nobel Prize

WASHINGTON (ISNS) -- Next week's Nobel Prizes will be the most prestigious awards given to scientists this year. Last night's Ig Nobel Prizes, on the other hand, were indisputably the funniest. They spotlighted scientists whose work walks the fine line between silly and significant -- a distinction that isn't always...

Sep 30, 2009

More Than a Storm Chaser

This summer, the Verification of the Origins of Rotation in Tornadoes EXperiment 2 (VORTEX2) brought 80 scientists and crew members and dozens of research vehicles and platforms to the tornado-prone regions of the United States to conduct the most detailed studies to date of tornadoes. Sarah Dillingham was part of...

Sep 30, 2009

Surprising Ship 'Contrails' Seen From Space

Although ships sail on the ocean, they can leave tracks in the sky. On Oct. 5, a NASA satellite snapped a shot of this phenomenon forming in a bank of clouds off North America’s west coast. The white trails look vaguely like the condensation trails, or contrails, left behind by...

Sep 30, 2009

Brilliant! Roof Tiles Change Color to Save Energy

On a blazing summer day, a black roof gets miserably hot, while a white roof reflects the sun and keeps a home cooler. In winter, the warmth generated by a solar-radiation-absorbing black roof can save energy. That's well-known and simple enough. Unfortunately, you can't have it both ways. Well ......

Sep 30, 2009

Volcanic Eruptions Caused Ancient Warming And Cooling

Volcanic eruptions were responsible for a deadly ice age 450 million years ago, as well as — in an ironic twist — a period of global warming that preceded it, a new study finds. The finding underscores the importance of carbon in Earth's climate today, said study researcher Matthew Saltzman...