Engineering Design

  1. Health & Medicine

    Adult diseases may be linked to childhood weight

    Danish scientists find that very overweight kids grow up with a heightened risk of colon cancer and stroke.

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  2. Physics

    Cool Jobs: Solar sleuthing

    No star is closer than the sun, and yet there’s much science still don’t know about how it actually works. These scientists are helping solve the mysteries.

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  3. Environment

    Fighting big farm pollution with a tiny plant

    Fertilizer runoff can fuel the growth of toxic algae nearby lakes. A teen decided to harness a tiny plant to sop up that fertilizer.

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  4. Tech

    Concrete science

    Teen researchers are exploring ways to strengthen this building material, use it for safety purposes and use its discarded rubble.

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  5. Physics

    Famous physics cat now alive, dead and in two boxes at once

    Splitting Erwin Schrödinger’s famous — and fictitious — cat between two boxes brings scientists one step closer to building quantum computers from microwaves.

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  6. Brain

    Teen drinking may damage ability to cope with stress

    Teens are often tempted to drink alcohol. Drinking too much — and repeatedly — can hurt their ability to manage stress, a study in rats indicates.

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  7. Climate

    Zapping clouds with lasers could alter Earth’s climate

    Scientists zapped ice crystals in a lab. They were exploring whether this approach might be used to break those crystals in clouds — potentially as a way to cool Earth’s fever.

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  8. Space

    Biologist Kate Rubins is headed to space

    Molecular biologist and astronaut Kate Rubins has spent 7 years preparing for a mission to the International Space Station. She blasts off this month.

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  9. Computing

    ‘Couch potatoes’ tend to be TV-energy hogs

    Many government programs urge people to save electricity by using more efficient TVs. Here’s why these programs should target “couch potatoes.”

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  10. Planets

    The ultimate getaway — visiting the Red Planet

    At a recent summit, experts discussed the challenges of a human mission to Mars — and how to land a crew there within 20 years.

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  11. Tech

    Helping MS patients get a grip on things

    An Irish teen has invented a device that helps people with multiple sclerosis address the “clenched fist” symptom that afflicts most such patients.

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  12. Tech

    Teen offers technology that could help brain surgeons

    It can reproduce plastic models of the precise faulty vessels that need fixing. Now doctors can see them, hold them and practice on them long before they pick up a scalpel.

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