Features

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  Dawn of the Deed: The Origin of Sex

  Fish fossils push back the origin of copulation in backboned animals and suggest that it was a key turning point in our evolution

  John A. Long   | January 1, 2011  | 16

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  Flu Factories

  The next pandemic virus may be circulating on U.S. pig farms, but health officials are struggling to see past the front gate

  Helen Branswell   | January 1, 2011  | 5

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  100 Trillion Connections: New Efforts Probe and Map the Brain's Detailed Architecture

  The noise of billions of brain cells trying to communicate with one another may hold a crucial clue to understanding consciousness

  Carl Zimmer   | January 1, 2011  | 19

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  Contact: The Day After

  If we are ever going to pick up a signal from E.T., it is going to happen soon, astronomers say. And we already have a good idea how events will play out

  Tim Folger   | January 1, 2011  | 55

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  Radioactive Smoke: A Dangerous Isotope Lurks in Cigarettes

  The tobacco industry has known for decades how to remove a dangerous isotope from cigarettes but has done nothing about it. The government now has the power to force a change

  Brianna Rego   | January 1, 2011  | 17

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  Casualties of Climate Change: Sea-level Rises Could Displace Tens of Millions

  Shifts in rainfall patterns and shorelines will contribute to mass migrations on a scale never before seen

  Alex de Sherbinin , Koko Warner and Charles Ehrhart   | January 1, 2011  | 34

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  Seeds of the Amazon

  Botanists have collected seeds from one of the most biologically diverse places on Earth

  Anna Kuchment   | January 1, 2011  | 2

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  In Search of the Radical Solution: A Q&A with Venture Capitalist Vinod Khosla on New Energy Technology

  The greatest energy payoffs, says investor Vinod Khosla, will come from fundamentally reinventing mainstream technologies

  Mark Fischetti   | January 1, 2011  | 6

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  Rise of the Robo Scientists

  Machines can devise a hypothesis, carry out experiments to test it, and assess results--without human intervention

  Ross D. King   | January 1, 2011  | 2