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  1. Health & Medicine

    Scratching an itch has both good effects and bad

    Mice that scratch itchy ears trigger more redness and swelling — but also may combat harmful bacteria.

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  2. Physics

    This weird ice may exist on alien planets

    Scientists used high pressure and heat to create plastic ice, which has qualities of both ordinary ice and liquid water.

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  3. Earth

    Let’s learn about the carbon cycle

    The total amount of carbon on Earth doesn’t change. But what form those carbon atoms take is constantly changing.

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  4. Health & Medicine

    Explainer: What is asthma and how is it treated?

    This chronic narrowing of lung airways can make it hard to breathe. Fortunately, drugs can widen those airways — even in people with severe asthma symptoms.

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  5. Physics

    Scientists Say: Lift

    An airplane wing’s unique shape creates air pressure differences that result in this gravity-defying force.

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  6. Health & Medicine

    Dad’s backyard lessons inspired this hearing scientist to learn

     A. Catalina Vélez-Ortega researches how proteins can protect against hearing loss.

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  7. Humans

    Biological sex is more complex than just male or female

    Trying to define sex with just two options fails to reflect the wide range of natural variation in human genetics, hormones and biology.

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  8. Environment

    More and more, microplastics are collecting in our brains

    Over eight years, the mass of microplastics in human brains increased by some 50 percent. There are growing hints that internal microplastics may harm us.

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  9. Brain

    Brain scans may offer clues to the mental health of trans youth

    A teen researcher identified a possible link between brain development and mental health in young trans people.

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  10. Tech

    Scientists Say: Agrivoltaics

    This win-win technology means future farmers may produce both food and electricity.

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  11. Animals

    Narwhals may use their enormous lance-like tusks to play

    Video shows narwhals using their tusks to prod — even flip — fish they don’t target as prey. It’s the first reported evidence of these whales playing.

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  12. Environment

    New water treatment process removes pollutants most now don’t

    The two-step water treatment process could cut not only excreted drugs flowing into waterways but also some nutrients that feed harmful algal blooms.

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