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By Virginia Gewin of Nature magazine Hidden in the landscape of the fertile crescent of the Middle East, scientists say, lurk overlooked networks of small settlements that hold vital clues to ancient civilizations. Beyond the impressive mounds of earth, known as tells in Arabic, that mark lost cities, researchers have found a way to give archaeologists a broader perspective of the ancient landscape.

By Virginia Gewin of Nature magazine Nicotine causes changes in gene regulation that enhance the brain's subsequent response to cocaine. [More]

By Virginia Gewin of Nature magazine Climate change represents a threat not only to the existence of individual species, but also to the genetic diversity hidden within them, researchers say. [More]

By Virginia Gewin of Nature magazine A new screening test makes use of urine, rather than blood, to identify the men most at risk of prostate cancer, and may even provide information about how aggressive a tumor is likely to be. The standard screening test for prostate cancer is a blood test for a protein called prostate specific antigen (PSA)

By Virginia Gewin of Nature magazine A massive extinction resulting from habitat loss is under way--but perhaps not as rapidly as is often predicted. A paper published today in Nature explains why past predictions of extinction rates--for example, a 1980 US National Research Council report predicting losses of millions of species by the year 2000--have not been realized. "We have mathematically proven why these 'guesstimates' are flawed," says Fangliang He, an ecologist currently at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, China, and a co-author of the latest study

By Virginia Gewin of Nature magazine The closed eyes, the unresponsiveness, the drool--sleep is an easily recognizable, all-encompassing state.