Science News back issues from March 1987:
Drug resistance: malaria-cancer similarity?
Mar 07, 1987; ... Drug resistance: Malaria-cancer similarity? Researchers at the Walter Reed ArmyInstitute of Research in Washington, D.C., report experimental evidence that malaria-causing parasites may be using the same defense against antimalaria drugs as cancer cells do against certain ...
Supernova 1987A: astronomers' luck. (supernova discovered in Large Magellanic Cloud)
Mar 07, 1987; ... Supernova 1978A: Astronomers's Luck "It's like Christmas,' says astronomerStanford Woosley of the University of California at Santa Cruz, speaking of the supernova in the Large Magellanic Cloud, officially named supernova 1987A (SN: 2/28/87, p.132). The flow of ...
Bright prospects for laboratory lasers.
Mar 07, 1987; ... Bright prospects for laboratory lasers In physics, power is often the key tonew discoveries. That's why particle physicists who hunt for new kinds of matter want to build larger and more powerful accelerators. And it is also why atomic physicists have dreamed of making bright ...
Early hearing loss and brain development.
Mar 07, 1987; ... Early hearing loss and brain development Severe damage to an infant's or fetus'sinner ear can trigger damage to certain areas of the brain and impede brain development, according to studies with chicks and chick embryos by researchers in Seattle. Exposing adult chicks to the the ...
Are landfills a major threat to climate?
Mar 07, 1987; ... Are landfills a major threat to climate? Most people associate an increase inchlorofluorocarbons and carbon dioxide with such climate-altering changes as ozone destruction and global "greenhouse' warming. However, other trace gas pollutants--including methane--can also affect ...
GOES-7: rebuilding the weather watch. (weather satellite)
Mar 07, 1987; ... GOES-7: Rebuilding the weather watch Weather satellites used to be viewed asperhaps the classic example of the routine side of the Space Age, but few U.S. space activities are described as "routine' these days. Thus the Feb. 24 liftoff and promising initial checkout of a ...
Nuclear licensing on hold. (nuclear power plants)
Mar 07, 1987 ... Nuclear licensing on hold Licensing of nuclear power plants inSeabrook, N.H., and Shoreham, N.Y., has been stalled indefinitely--despite the physical completion of both plants-- because some state and local governments have refused to participate in the emergency-evacuation ...
AIDS researchers debate danger of HIV-2.
Mar 07, 1987; ... AIDS researchers debate danger of HIV-2 A worldwide search to understand theHIV-1 virus responsible for AIDS has left a broad trail for scientists to follow in their study of another virus that also may cause AIDS. First described about a year ago, the so-called HIV-2 virus was ...
The rewards of student research. (1987 Westinghouse Science Talent Search)
Mar 07, 1987 ... The rewards of student research The knack of asking good questionsbrought scholarships and awards this week to a group of high school students in the 46th annual Westinghouse Science Talent Search. Topping the list was Louise Chia Chang, a senior at the University of Chicago ...
A rusty path to life's origin. (rustlike compounds as molecular starting materials)
Mar 07, 1987; ... A rusty path to life's origin One of the more notable gaps in theories concerning theorigin of life on earth is the step from simple molecules, such as formaldehyde, cyanides and various amino acids, to complex polymers that can replicate themselves. A variety of credible, ...
Shaking up quasicrystals.
Mar 07, 1987; ... Shaking up quasicrystals Normally, a crystalline material is made up of identicalbuilding blocks that stack neatly in a regularly repeating pattern. Thus, atoms occupy particular, well-defined positions within a crystal. In an amorphous material like glass, atoms tend to be ...
Unmasking a 'Mona Lisa' coverup. (computer image processing techniques used to get an idea of how painting looked originally)
Mar 07, 1987; ... Unmasking a "Mona Lisa' coverup The "Mona Lisa,' on exhibit at the Louvre in Paris, no longerlooks the way it did when Leonardo da Vinci finished his painting more than 450 years ago. Layers of discolored brown varnish, an extensive network of fine cracks and repeated restoration ...
Enzyme ruse successful. (method to protect adenosine deaminase from destruction by immune system)
Mar 07, 1987 ... Enzyme ruse successful A method of protecting a therapeutic enzyme from destructionby the immune system has proven "remarkably successful,' says Rebecca H. Buckley of Duke University in Durham, N.C. She and her colleagues used the treatment earlier this year (SN: 5/3/86, p.277) ...
New lab for interactive videos. (National Demonstration Laboratory for Interactive Video Techniques)
Mar 07, 1987 ... New lab for interactive videos Last week the Smithsonian Institution, together with a groupof public broadcasting stations and systems, launched what they believe to be the first comprehensive U.S. center for research and development on interactive-video applications. Located at ...
Transfer factor and AIDS.
Mar 07, 1987; ... Transfer factor and AIDS In the search for an AIDS treatment, researchers have triedalready available agents, designed new chemical entities and rummaged through libraries of drugs shelved because they failed other purposes. Bruce L. Wolf and his colleagues at the University of ...
What a few can do for the environment. (policy changes by a few important countries could make contribution)
Mar 07, 1987 ... What a few can do for the environment Among the more daunting prospects for those charting acourse toward an environmentally sustainable future is how to mobilize the world into coordinated action. For some major environmental problems, however, policy changes by just a few ...
Sea cycle clock. (changing cycles in stratigraphic record made by global sea level changes)
Mar 07, 1987; ... Sea Cycle Clock Millions of years ago, along someancient shoreline, the sea level fell. Winds and rain gradually ate away at the exposed rocks, weathering their surfaces. The eroded debris was carried to the ocean shelf, where it mixed with the remains of shallow-water organisms ...
Home on the grain; minuscule and precocious, newly found species of aquatic invertebrates offer a delightful solution to a deep sea mystery. (bryozoans)
Mar 07, 1987; ... Home on the Grain They live fast and die young. Theyleave not their footprints, but their skeletons, affixed to single grains of the sea's shifting sand. For the newly found species of bryozoan invertebrates that colonize sand grains, it's a small, small world indeed. ...
Hot questions in superconductivity.
Mar 14, 1987; ... Hot questions in superconductivity Last month, researchers announcedthey had made a material that becomes completely superconducting at 94|K (-290|F). By losing all electrical resistance 17|K above the boiling point of the inexpensive coolant liquid nitrogen, it promises to make ...
Layers of complexity in ozone hole.
Mar 14, 1987; ... Layers of Complexity in Ozone Hole One more mystery has been added tothe seasonal loss of ozone in the stratosphere over Antarctica. It now appears that the "hole' is an uneven one, with 2-to 3-kilometer-thick slices of ozone-poor air sandwiched within layers of only minimal ...
Scientists, 'boxed in,' scramble after supernova, find neutrinos.
Mar 14, 1987; ... Scientists, "boxed in,' scramble after supernova, find neutrinos Supernova 1987A is "an event unique inour lifetimes,' said Stanford Woosley of the University of California at Santa Cruz. He was speaking March 6 at a hastily convened workshop on the supernova, which brought ...
Goodbye, Pioneer 9. (space probe given up for dead)
Mar 14, 1987 ... Goodbye, Pioneer 9 A little space probe called Pioneer 9,which was launched on Nov. 8, 1968, into a vast, sun-circling orbit, has finally been given up for dead--nearly four years after it was last heard from. Having spent almost a decade and ahalf monitoring the solar ...
Star dust in the sky with diamonds. (microscopic diamonds found in meteorites)
Mar 14, 1987; ... Star dust in the sky with diamonds Diamond dust, created within gasesescaping from a dying star, may be strewn throughout space. The evidence for this startling picture is embedded in microscopic diamonds recently found for the first time within several types of meteorites. ...
A super-supercomputer. (Numerical Aerodynamic Simulator)
Mar 14, 1987 ... A super-supercomputer A supercomputer system that NASAcalls "the world's most advanced,' intended to aid tasks ranging from the design of high-speed aircraft to the study of galactic evolution and world weather patterns, was declared operational on March 9 at the space agency's ...
Gene defect located for Gaucher's disease.
Mar 14, 1987; ... Gene defect located for Gaucher's disease Using recently developed methods forgenetic analysis, scientists have located a rare gene defect that often leads to a potentially fatal enzyme deficiency in infants. Shoji Tsuji of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and his ...
Plaque hemorrhage linked to stroke.
Mar 14, 1987; ... Plaque hemorrhage linked to stroke Stroke, the third most frequent cause ofdeath in the United States, can result from the buildup of fatty plaque, which narrows the arteries and induces blood to form clots that block blood flow to the brain. In recent years, some ...
Future 'patchwork' cure for hemophilia?
Mar 14, 1987; ... Future "patchwork' cure for hemophilia? Researchers at the Fred HutchinsonCancer Research Center and the University of Washington, both in Seattle, are giving a genetic-engineering twist to basic procedures used in skin grafting. Using fibroblast cells infected with viruses ...
Keys to help unlock photosynthesis.
Mar 14, 1987; ... Keys to help unlock photosynthesis "If we fully understood photosynthesis,it might be possible to build solar chemical factories to make food and fuel faster and with higher overall quality than nature can,' says James Norris, a chemist at Argonne (III.) National Laboratory. ...
New plan drafted to save the panda. (World Wildlife Fund project)
Mar 14, 1987; ... New plan drafted to save the panda Despite extensive efforts to protect thegiant panda, over the past 10 years its population in China appears to have been more than decimated, according to a study conducted by the Chinese Ministry of Forestry and the Swiss-based World Wildlife ...
Bilirubin: bad, yet good?
Mar 14, 1987 ... Bilirubin: Bad, yet good? As an end product of the breakdown of red blood cells inmammals, bilirubin can cause problems if it accumulates in tissues in abnormal amounts, and it is particularly destructive when concentrated in the nervous system. Although normally excreted with ...
Circadian variation in ozone tolerance. (health effects of ozone exposures delivered at different times)
Mar 14, 1987; ... Circadian variation in ozone tolerance Most ozone studies involving rodents are done during theday, when the human experimenters are most alert, notes toxicologist Leendert van Bree. But this is not the most active period for nocturnal animals such as rats. Even if rats are ...
Exercise may worsen NO2 toxicity. (nitrogen dioxide)
Mar 14, 1987; ... Exercise may worsen NO2 toxicity Last year the Environmental Protection Agency reported onstudies indicating that even healthy people who exercise vigorously at smog-ozone levels previously thought to be safe may suffer adverse respiratory effects (SN: 6/28/86, p.405). Now ...
Gift of life not taken by givers. (few people are banking own blood )
Mar 14, 1987 ... Gift of life not taken by givers Although it is safer for patients awaiting elective surgery todonate their own blood for use after surgery, very few are taking advantage of this blood-banking procedure, called autologous donation. A national survey of nearly 5,000 surgery ...
New mean team: flu and toxic shock.
Mar 14, 1987 ... New mean team: Flu and toxic shock Clinical cases of a deadly disease duo--which may in facthave felled residents of ancient Athens--have been noted for the first time by the medical community, according to two articles in the Feb. 27 JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION. ...
The old and the ethnic in astronomy.
Mar 14, 1987; ... The Old and the Ethnic in Astronomy Archaeoastronomy--or, as it issometimes called, ethnoastronomy --is one of those things that are hard to define precisely but everybody involved in them knows what they are. The subject includes prescientific astronomy, and so encompasses the ...
Flakes, breaks and the first Americans. (challenge to the belief that humans did not migrate to North America until end of the Ice Age; includes related article on marshes as sources of fossilized bones)
Mar 14, 1987; ... Flakes, Breaks and the First Americans To many archaeologists, the contentionthat humans first trooped into North America 200,000 years ago or more is outrageous at worst, an interesting but unproven assumption at best. But evidence for this controversial view from two ...
Putting the squeeze on foam. (flexible foam developed)
Mar 14, 1987; ... Putting the squeeze on foam Stretch a rubber band, and the bandgets longer and thinner. Squeeze a sponge in one spot, and it bulges somewhere else. That's the way practically all spongy, porous materials behave. Now a biomedical engineer has created a flexible foam that does the ...
Neutrino astronomy born in a supernova.
Mar 21, 1987; ... Neutrino Astronomy Born in a Supernova "It's just a neutrino high, just wonderful,'says John Bahcall of Princeton (N.J.) University's Institute for Advanced Study. "For me this is a kind of culmination of20 years of work,' says Alfred Mann of the University of ...
Pill-cancer: another look. (oral contraceptives and cancer)
Mar 21, 1987 ... Pill/cancer: Another look Women who have used oral contraceptiveshave a 40 percent lower risk of developing epithelial ovarian cancer than women who have not used the pill, according to a recent analysis of the Cancer and Steroid Hormone Study data collected between 1980 and 1982 ...
High blood pressure: drugless treatment?
Mar 21, 1987; ... High blood pressure: Drugless treatment? Used by nearly 15 million people inthe United States, drugs to lower high blood pressure are a common factor in maintaining health. But, concerned over possible adverse effects, a number of researches are exploring drugless methods to ...
Parasite vaccine hunt follows new roads.
Mar 21, 1987; ... Parasite vaccine hunt follows new roads It has been more than 190 years sincethe discharge from cowpox pustules was used to protect humans from smallpox in a new process called vaccination. Since then, the science of developing protective drugs has evolved into a highly technical ...
EPM: fallout over a naval EMPRESS. (Electromagnetic Pulse Radiation Environment Simulator for Ships)
Mar 21, 1987; ... EMP: Fallout over a naval EMPRESS Since the Navy first announced itsintent to build and operate an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) simulator in the Chesapeake Bay--one of the most productive estuarine systems in the world--there has been growing concern about the project's potential ...
Tuning in to songbirds and their songs.
Mar 21, 1987; ... Tuning in to songbirds and their songs Next to humans, songbirds have perhapsthe most varied language repertoire of any animal. Recent studies of their brains and behavior are revealing singing secrets that may help scientists understand how birds--and humans--learn and use the ...
Bound for the crown of Neptune. (Voyager 2 mission)
Mar 21, 1987; ... Bound for the crown of Neptune A decade ago, when Voyager 1 and 2took off from Florida's Cape Canaveral, the official mission plan called only for both probes to fly close to Jupiter and Saturn. There was hope that Voyager 2 would then go on to Uranus in 1986, but the craft would ...
Energy for life among the waves. (contribution of wave energy to seashore ecology)
Mar 21, 1987; ... Energy for life among the waves The thunderous crash of a large wavebreaking on an ocean beach is a vivid reminder of the sizable amount of energy that such a wave dissipates. Although marine plants and animals can't harness this energy directly, it now appears that wave energy ...
Fractals: magical fun or revolutionary science?
Mar 21, 1987; ... FRACTALS: MAGICAL FUN OR REUOLUTIONARY SCIENCE? Richard F. Voss is a mathematicianwith the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, N.Y. An energetic young man with a very good stage presence, he is always a delight to hear, especially when he comes equipped ...
Mastering the microburst; these elusive winds drop from clouds and sweep planes out of the sky, but scientists are developing systems to detect them.
Mar 21, 1987; ... MASTERING THE MICROBURST On Aug. 2, 1985, Delta flight 191 wasdescending through scattered thunderstorms at 6:04 p.m. on a routine approach to the Dallas-Ft. Worth Airport. At 6:06, the plane was a ball of flames, lying less than a mile from the runway. In the interim, flight ...
Alzheimer-Down syndrome bond tightens.
Mar 21, 1987 ... Alzheimer/Down syndrome bond tightens The latest in a series of reports suggesting a common geneticdefect for Alzheimer's disease and Down syndrome comes from an international corps of scientists in Paris and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). According to a report in the ...
Mutation causing cleft palate found.
Mar 21, 1987 ... Mutation causing cleft palate found Another study that could be a research springboard into thebroad arena of genetic disorders has been completed by research groups at the University of London, the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research in Cambridge, Mass., and the National ...
National animal health system. (effort to monitor health problems of livestock)
Mar 21, 1987 ... National animal health system In an effort to monitor infectiousdiseases and other health problems of livestock, as well as their economic effects, the USDA is developing the National Animal Health Monitoring System. Pilot programs already completed in seven states have been used ...
Probable eye cancer gene scrutinized.
Mar 21, 1987 ... Probable eye cancer gene scrutinized At the University of California at San Diego in La Jolla,researchers have cloned and characterized the gene thought responsible for susceptibility to hereditary retinoblastoma, an eye cancer found in children (SN: 1/5/85, p.10). Altered ...
A rose is a rose ... no longer. (new technique for identifying rose hybrids)
Mar 21, 1987 ... A rose is a rose . . . no longer By any other name, a patented hybrid rose just isn't the same.Worth $44 million a year, the breeding and selling of thousands of rose plant varieties can lead to concerns about patent rights. An identification process approved by the U.S. ...
Shivering mice 'warmed' by gene therapy.
Mar 21, 1987 ... Shivering mice "warmed' by gene therapy Injection of a normal gene that codes for a nerve-cell-sheathingprotein can cure a type of mouse suffering from tremors and convulsions, say the authors of two reports in the Feb. 27 CELL. Mice carrying the "shiverer' gene mutation, which ...
When growing down isn't good enough. (apogeotropic roots that grow upward)
Mar 21, 1987 ... When growing down isn't good enough There are "renegade' tree roots in the Amazonian rain forestthat apparently listen to the beat of their own drummer. Rather than grow downward into the soil as good roots should, they grow vertically up the trunks of neighboring trees--most ...
Chemical warfare commission erred. (Chemical Warfare Review Commission)
Mar 21, 1987 ... Chemical warfare commission erred According to a new General Accounting Office (GAO) study,the short-lived Chemical Warfare Review Commission, established two years ago to advise the administration (SN: 2/9/87, p.84), violated several requirements for such presidential panels. ...
DOD revises its space policy. (Department of Defense)
Mar 21, 1987 ... DOD revises its space policy In recent years, the Department of Defense (DOD) hasdepended on NASA space shuttles as the primary vehicles for launching its payloads into space. In fact, only last August President Reagan said NASA's space shuttles should be dedicated at least in ...
Faster approval for some drugs.
Mar 21, 1987 ... Faster approval for some drugs Responding to the recommendations of a presidential taskforce on regulatory relief, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced last week that it would propose a change in its rules for experimental drugs so that those showing promise could be ...
Getting the bugs out of packaging. (packaging technique in which integrated circuits are mounted directly on silicon wafers)
Mar 21, 1987 ... Getting the bugs out of packaging With its hard plastic case from which an array of metal legsprotrude, the typical integrated circuit chip looks a lot like an armored insect. Such chips plug into boards carrying printed wires that connect the various chips needed for a computer ...
Packing more memory into silicon. (semiconductor chip technology)
Mar 21, 1987 ... Packing more memory into silicon One measure of progress in microelectronics is the numberof bits of data that can be stored in a single computer memory chip. Only seven years ago, that number was 64,000 bits. This year, manufacturers are just starting to produce commercial ...
Louis de Broglie, 1892-1987.
Mar 28, 1987 ... Louis de Broglie, 1892-1987 Louis, Duc de Broglie, one of lastsurvivors of the group of brilliant physicists who developed modern physics and quantum mechanics, died in Paris, March 19, at the age of 94. His first academic degree was in history, but then he turned to science and ...
Superconductivity: a physics rush.
Mar 28, 1987; ... Superconductivity: A Physics Rush In science, "recent' usually means "inthe last few years.' In the search for high-temperature superconductivity it has come to mean "yesterday.' High-temperature superconductivityis the physicist's dream that now seems to be coming ...
Amassing momentum for Mars. (space research)
Mar 28, 1987; ... Amassing momentum for Mars The idea of going back to Mars, wherethe last arrivals were the Viking space-craft in 1976, has been much discussed in recent years, with issues ranging from keeping a planned U.S. Mars orbiter on track in NASA's budget to the possibility of joining ...
AIDS drug approved, vaccine tested.
Mar 28, 1987; ... AIDS drug approved, vaccine tested Both the treatment and prevention ofAIDS took another step forward last week with the announcement of federal approval for sales of an AIDS drug and a report that an experimental vaccine had been injected into humans. A drug that does ...
Thalidomide: is there a silver lining? (research on use in bone marrow transplants)
Mar 28, 1987; ... Thalidomide: Is there a silver lining? Once exiled from medicine for thesevere birth defects it can cause, the drug thalidomide may have found a respectable role in preventing the severe reaction associated with transplanting tissues. According to Georgia B. Vogelsang ...
Manic depression: a new gene defect.
Mar 28, 1987; ... Manic depression: A new gene defect There have been a spate of recentstudies concerned with the genetic basis of manic depression, and the latest effort indicates that either of at least two genetic defects may predispose individuals to this severe disorder. ...