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Shuttle Orbiter Enterprise was the first of NASA's space shuttles. Its original name, "Constitution", commemorated the United States Bicentennial in 1976, but a campaign led by dedicated fans of the television series "Star Trek" led President Gerald R. Ford to request that NASA change the name to "Enterprise". The shuttle flew eight captive flights on the back of a 747 to evaluate its systems in a flight environment, and five free flights tested…
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Several recent studies have questioned whether exposure to common pesticides might be impairing bee performance and contributing to the observed population declines. Neonicotinoids are a family of pesticides chemically related to nicotine, and are widely used in both large-scale agriculture as well as in home gardening products. This type of pesticide circulates through flowering plants and collects in nectar and pollen. Recent studies conducted by…
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Vesta, the second-largest object in the asteroid belt, is bright enough to be seen from Earth without a telescope. Now, thanks to NASA's Dawn spacecraft, scientists can take a much closer look at Vesta. As Dawn orbits Vesta at low altitude, it captures high-resolution images of the asteroid's surface. Vesta's scarred, cratered landscape is marked by deposits of bright and dark minerals, which appear most frequently at impact sites. Other observations…
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A new species of frog recently announced itself to scientists studying amphibians in the area surrounding New York City. The marshes and wetlands of the tristate area have long been recognized as home to spotted leopard frogs; several species have already been described in the region. But when researchers heard this frog's unusual vocalization, they suspected that it was not one of the known types of leopard frogs. Specimens were collected in northern…
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A good sense of smell may have contributed to the development of certain kinds of social functions in Homo sapiens, according to a new study. Scientists used 3D modeling to reconstruct modern human and Neanderthal brains and discovered that the olfactory areas, which govern smell, are larger in humans. Their models also show that humans have larger temporal lobes, regions related to social behavior. Future studies will explore the possibility of a…
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