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Five Sarries players breach social distancing rules

Five Saracens players have apologised after they were pictured breaking social distancing rules on Monday.




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Recap: Italy v Ireland - The 2013 Grand Slam clincher

It's St Patrick's Day 2013. The pubs are open, you can shake all the hands in the world, and Ireland Women are on the cusp of a historic Grand Slam. Join us here for a trip down memory lane.




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Australia planning to resume Super Rugby rugby in July

Australia's Super Rugby competition is planning for an early July return, a spokesman said today, after the coronavirus outbreak derailed the season and sparked turmoil within the sport's cash-strapped governing body.




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In China, 2,500-year-old evidence of cannabis smoking

An incense burner from a century tested positive for a chemical that’s released when THC is burned.




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Canines evolved puppy dog eyes to woo human companions

Wolves lack the facial muscles required to raise their eyebrows—a feature that makes dogs especially endearing to people.




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Thirsty for solutions, water managers are putting AI-powered tools to work

Around the world, aging and inadequate water systems are a huge public health problem. Now, researchers are using artificial intelligence to help conserve and monitor the quality of drinking water.




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Humans are surprisingly honest when it comes to returning lost wallets

Altruism is alive and well. So is the desire to protect one’s self-image.




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What makes a great qubit? Diamonds and ions could hold the answer

At the core of quantum computing is the qubit. The best ones have a few defining traits, and scientists are looking to everything from lasers to Russian diamonds to help refine the best qubits for the next generation of quantum computing.




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Microbes from marathoner poop boost endurance in mice

A bacterial “probiotic” may enhance athletic performance. But it’s a long way from being ready for use in humans.




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‘Talking’ seals mimic sounds from human speech, and validate a Boston legend

In the late 1970s, a harbor seal named Hoover began catcalling passersby at the New England Aquarium in a thick Maine accent. A new study confirms seals’ uncanny ability to copy human speech.




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Early humans may have shared ancient Europe with this 1,000-pound bird

A new study suggests a half-ton bird roamed Europe nearly 2 million years ago, around when our Homo predecessors were first entering the region.




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With new DNA analysis, the Neanderthal story gets even more complex

A new study reveals that some European Neanderthals might have displaced their relatives in Siberia, while others mingled with another, still mysterious, ancient human population.




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Thinking is for suckers, but if you’re an octopus, suckers are for thinking

Octopuses “think” with neurons so distributed throughout their bodies that sometimes the left hand literally doesn’t know what the…left hand is doing.




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Many cocoa farm workers aren’t reaping the benefits of Fairtrade certification

In Côte d’Ivoire, employees at Fairtrade-certified cocoa cooperatives have higher salaries and better working conditions than those at non-certified organizations. Farm laborers, on the other hand, don’t fare as well.




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The uplifting science of how dandelion seeds stay aloft

Two research teams went into the weeds to quantify the magic behind the flight of the dandelion seed.




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The physics of freezing soap bubbles is cooler than you’d think

Freezing soap bubbles look like snow globes. This whimsical effect could help us improve biological freezing techniques—and is incredibly fun to watch.




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In best-case reforestation scenario, trees could remove most of the carbon humans have added to the atmosphere

A study finds that close to a trillion trees could potentially be planted on Earth—enough to sequester more than 200 billion tons of carbon. But environmental change on this scale is no easy task.




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Venus flytraps’ ultra-sensitive hairs help determine if an insect is worth trapping

Good news for bugs that weigh less than a sesame seed.




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Poof! Science reveals how easily a magician can fool you

How “change blindness” prevents you from seeing this 10 of clubs turn into an ace of spades.




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Skull fragment shows humans may have been in Europe earlier than previously thought

A new analysis of a skull found in Greece decades ago suggests that early humans may have been in Eurasia as early as 210,000 years ago.




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New fossil find complicates the meandering story of dinosaur flight

A chicken-sized raptor relative adds credence to the idea that flight evolved multiple times among ground-faring dinosaurs.




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Artificial intelligence can now bet, bluff, and beat poker pros at Texas hold ’em

The breakthrough suggests that bots can navigate complex games involving multiple stakeholders and hidden information—situations that better approximate the real world than two-player board games.




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Bring "Spooky Action at a Distance" into the Classroom with NOVA Resources

Quantum physics impacts the technology students use every day. Use these resources from NOVA broadcasts, NOVA Digital, and What the Physics!? to introduce quantum concepts to your classroom.




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Installing aerogel shields on Mars could make the Red Planet more habitable

Human-made shields that block UV rays and concentrate heat on the Martian surface could provide both liquid water and protection from radiation.




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Adding 8 trillion tons of artificial snow to the West Antarctic Ice Sheet could stop from collapsing. Should we do it?

There are a heck of a lot of reasons not to.




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In a first, researchers have permanently magnetized a liquid

The new material could have applications in robotics and medicine.




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In a smattering of ancient stars, scientists glimpse the Milky Way’s origins

A new analysis pinpoints some of the most ancient stars in our galaxy—and tells the story of the Milky Way’s ravenous past.




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In the race against climate change, many animals may not keep up

A sobering analysis suggests that animal species aren’t adapting fast enough to maintain their numbers in the face of rising temperatures.




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Scientists use radiation and bacteria to slash mosquito populations on two Chinese islands

Combining two insect-control techniques, researchers largely prevented reproduction in a mosquito species known to carry Zika, dengue, and yellow fever.




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This robotic hand can partially restore a sense of touch

Researchers have built a prosthesis that enabled a man who lost his hand to text, pluck grapes from their stems, and stuff a pillow into its case.




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Chaser, the language-learning dog with a 1,000-word vocabulary, has died

The border collie achieved international fame for her remarkable grasp on vocabulary and sentence structure.




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This ‘Big Red Ball’ can simulate the Sun’s bizarre magnetic field

Physicists built a machine that might help explain how solar wind forms—all without leaving Earth’s atmosphere.




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Meet <i>Cambroraster falcatus</i>, the sediment-sifting ‘Roomba’ of the Cambrian

This crustacean-like critter stalked the seas half a billion years ago.




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A new trio of exoplanets could offer clues to how midsized planets form

The trifecta, discovered by NASA’s TESS, includes a “super-Earth” and two “sub-Neptunes” in a system called TOI-270.




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The little bicycle that could, thanks to artificial intelligence

An AI chip designed to mimic certain aspects of the human brain has given a bicycle an unprecedented level of autonomy.




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How kiwi plants’ Shy Girls and Friendly Boys helped them evolve separate sexes

These two genes are all it takes to determine the sex of a kiwifruit.




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There will be blood, and physics, too: The messy science of bloodstain pattern analysis

Researchers are using fluid dynamics to try to improve the study of crime scene blood spatter.




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Total warfare among the Maya began earlier than once thought

The burnt ruins of a Maya city in what’s now Guatemala hold clues to its untimely demise at the turn of the 7th century.




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Iron from ancient supernovae may still be raining down on Earth

A rare iron isotope produced by exploding stars has been found in Antarctic snow.




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Hurricanes give aggressive spiders a leg up on their docile kin

For Anelosimus studiosus spiders, the storm survival checklist apparently includes a combative personality.




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The weird and wonderful world growing spuds (and other crops) in space

With the right kind of care, plenty of plants actually do just fine in microgravity.




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Climate change could mean more mercury in seafood

The threat of mercury in seafood was curbed with regulations, but climate change could drive levels back up.




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Cheeseburgers give urban crows higher cholesterol—just like us

But it’s not clear whether elevated cholesterol is bad for birds.




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These albino lizards are the first gene-edited non-avian reptiles

Scientists injected CRISPR gene-editing machinery into unfertilized eggs still developing in female lizards’ ovaries.




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First Americans arrived at least 16,000 years ago, and probably by boat

Artifacts unearthed in Idaho challenge the idea that the first people to populate the Americas made the journey on foot around the end of the Ice Age.




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A microprocessor made of carbon nanotubes says, “Hello, World!”

The technology is still in its infancy, but could someday aid the development of faster, more energy-efficient electronics.




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Hurricane Dorian crawls up the coast from Florida to Virginia

Some of the storm’s features hint at troubling trends in recent hurricanes.




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Fossil finger points to a surprising link between humans and Denisovans

New findings suggest Neanderthals evolved their unusually broad fingers after they split from Denisovans, just 400,000 years ago.




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How Kīlauea’s lava birthed an algal bloom visible from space

Lava descending into Hawai‘i’s ocean drove an upward surge of deep sea nutrients, cultivating life at the surface.




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Supercooling preserves donor livers for more than a day

The breakthrough could mean that fewer organs go to waste before they make it into a transplant recipient.