Science News back issues from December 1990:
Soybean lecithin may prevent cirrhosis.
Dec 01, 1990; ... Soybean Lecithin May Prevent Cirrhosis A decade-long baboon study indicates that lecithin, a soybean extract used in many processed foods, can delay and perhaps even prevent alcoholic cirrhosis of the liver. Moreover, test-tube experiments suggest that lecithin may reverse early ...
Another gap in mapping Venus.
Dec 01, 1990 ... Another gap in mapping Venus NASA blames an engineer at its Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) for incorrectly sending a series of computer commands late last week, an error that shut down the mapping of Venus by the Magellan spacecraft for four complete orbits of the planet. ...
Noise at sea: cries of infant microbubbles. (tiny bubbles generate most of the noise that divers hear)
Dec 01, 1990; ... Noise at sea: Cries of infant microbubbles Breaking waves and rainfall splattering the ocean surface create vast numbers of invisible, microscopic bubbles. Several studies now suggest that these tiny bubbles generate most of the noise a diver might hear while swimming just below ...
New allergy vaccine brings relief to rats. (experimental vaccine blocks allergic reactions)
Dec 01, 1990; ... New allergy vaccine brings relief to rats An experimental vaccine blocks allergic reactions in rats and shows promise as a novel treatment for humans, British immunologists report. But other researchers express concern that the vaccine's design rests on an unconfirmed theory of ...
Liquids that tiptoe on the edge of solidity. (materials research)
Dec 01, 1990; ... Liquids that tiptoe on the edge of solidity In extremely tight spots, liquids get away with some very unliquid-like behaviors, often masquerading as solids. Some refuse to freeze even when chilled far below their freezing point for weeks at a time. These surprising findings, ...
Genetic propensity to common cancers found.
Dec 01, 1990; ... Genetic propensity to common cancers found Researchers have identified an inherited gene defect that heavily predisposes individuals to breast cancer and some other malignancies. Cancer scientists say the finding provides a new window on the molecular underpinnings of hereditary ...
San Andreas fault may have many faces. (potential for further earthquakes in the San Francisco Bay Area)
Dec 01, 1990; ... San Andreas fault may have many faces A close examination of last October's Loma Prieta earthquake and the great San Francisco quake of 1906 has yielded a surprising conclusion: The two shocks appear to have ripped different faces of the San Andreas fault. If so, geoscientists ...
Mother tongue may influence musical ear. (speech characteristics influence how people hear music)
Dec 01, 1990; ... Mother tongue may influence musical ear When a Briton and a Californian listen to Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, they may not hear the same thing. New research indicates that people who speak different dialects of a language perceive tonal patterns in strikingly different ways, ...
High-pressure hormone: mysterious blood compound may plant seeds of hypertension. (steroid hormone oubain)
Dec 01, 1990; ... High-Pressure Hormone Members of certain East African tribes gather seeds of the tropical vine Strophanthus gratus and extract a lethal poison to smear on their arrow tips. Some accounts describe murderers slathering the poison on a prickly fruit, then placing the fruit on a ...
Scars from an ancient collision. (evidence for a collision of drifting continents in the Proterozoic era)
Dec 01, 1990 ... Scars from an ancient collision The Alps, Appalachians, and Himalayas all evolved out of earth-wrenching crashes between two or more of the slow but relentlessly moving tectonic plates that cover the planet's surface. Similar continental smashups have occurred for at least 2 ...
A little oxygen is better than none. (atmospheric oxygen levels in the Archaean era)
Dec 01, 1990 ... A little oxygen is better than none If the thin air atop a mountain peak makes you gasp for breath, consider how hard it would have been to breathe during the Archean era, the first 2 billion years of Earth's history. Scientists have long believed that the atmosphere back then ...
Ins and outs of pesticide residues. (protecting greenhouse workers)
Dec 01, 1990; ... Ins and outs of pesticide residues On field-grown crops, pesticide residues tend to diminish rapidly through decomposition by sunlight or rinsing by rain. Regulators usually take this into account when approving instructions for pesticide application. But safety margins based on ...
Reassessing costs of keeping baby dry. (safety of burying disposable diapers in landfills)
Dec 01, 1990; ... Reassessing costs of keeping baby dry Because human feces may contain many disease-causing organisms, environmental engineers worry about the long-term safety of burying disposable diapers in landfills. To investigate the threat, researchers have now exhumed a total of more than ...
Dawn of a big telescope: astronomers await the debut of Keck's tiled mirror. (W.M. Keck Observatory, Hawaii) (Cover Story)
Dec 01, 1990; ... Dawn of a BIG Telescope Fourteen thousand feet above sea level, the summit of Hawaii's Mauna Kea commands a panoramic view of ocean, sky and extinct volcanoes. High above treeline, where the air thins and even simple tasks can require special effort, the summit's barren, ...
Planetary coffee: take a five-minute break inside the earth. (similarities between a cup of coffee and the earth's interior)
Dec 01, 1990; ... Planetary Coffee When geophysicist Peter Olson stares into his morning cup of coffee, he sees clear down into the blistering bowels of the planet. It doesn't require bionic vision, just a little insight into the currents of rock oozing beneath Earth's outer shell. You, too, can ...
Heightened concern over growth hormone. (being given to children)
Dec 08, 1990; ... Heightened Concern Over Growth Hormone Parents should think twice before giving growth-enhancing hormones to short but healthy children, British researchers advise. A new study indicates that supplementary doses of human growth hormone can trigger worrisome metabolic and physical ...
Astro finally eyes X-ray and UV universe. (Astro Observatory, ultraviolet)
Dec 08, 1990; ... Astro finally eyes X-ray and UV universe After nearly two days of delays in orbit caused by technical problems that robbed the Astro Observatory of at least 10 percent of its viewing targets, the shuttle-borne astronomical probe began feasting its "eyes" on a host of galaxies, ...
Engineered rats reveal arthritic surprise. (genetically engineered animal model for spondyloarthropathies)
Dec 08, 1990; ... Engineered rats reveal arthritic surprise Texas researchers report developing the first animal model for a group of debilitating arthritic diseases that afflict an estimated 200,000 people in the United States. Their work with the genetically engineered rats adds to the growing ...
Buckeyballs get their first major physical. (carbon molecule shaped like R. Buckminster Fuller's geodesic domes)
Dec 08, 1990; ... Buckeyballs get their first major physical For eight hours last week, a hotel ballroom in Boston percolated with excitement as materials researchers from around the world shared their hot-off-the-bench discoveries about fullerenes -- beautifully symmetric molecules they've been ...
Elusive patterns seen in solar neutrino data.
Dec 08, 1990; ... Elusive patterns seen in solar neutrino data For 20 years, a detector deep in the Homestake gold mine near Lead, S.D., has recorded the arrival of neutrinos apparently produced by the thermonuclear reactions at the suns's core. Three new analyses of the accumulated data now ...
Satellite secrecy doesn't sink scientists. (U.S. Defense Department and the Global Positioning System satellites)
Dec 08, 1990; ... Satellite secrecy doesn't sink scientists The U.S. Department of Defense last March began "degrading" information coming down from its Global Positioning System (GPS), a network of precise navigational satellites. The long-expected change -- which involves adding bogus data to ...
Cyprus dig pushes back colonization date. (archeological excavation suggests that people inhabited Cyprus at least 10,000 years ago)
Dec 08, 1990; ... Cyprus dig pushes back colonization date Excavation at a collapsed rock shelter on Cyprus suggest that people inhabitated the site at least 10,000 years ago, about two millenia earlier than any other documented human occupation on the Mediterranean island. The ...
Maker, NASA blamed for Hubble's defect. (Perkin-Elmer Corp., contractor for the space telescope)
Dec 08, 1990; ... Maker, NASA blamed for Hubble's defect ANASA-appointed panel concluded last week that the space agency and the contractor it hired to build the Hubble Space Telescope's primary mirror deserve equal blame for not detecting -- prior to Hubble's launch -- the serious optical ...
Snakebite succor: researchers foresee antivenin improvements. (includes information on other venomous creatures) (Cover Story)
Dec 08, 1990; ... Snakebite Succor In Baltic mythology, hell consists of an icy hall lined with snake heads, their jaws dripping a river of cold venom in which the damned must forever wade and swim. In Egyptian mythology, the sun god Ra complained bitterly about getting bitten by a ...
Bleached reefs: is a warm-water cycle stripping corals of their lifeblood?
Dec 08, 1990; ... Bleached Reefs They look like snowfields under the Caribbean Sea. After weeks of abnormally warm water temperatures, the usually colorful Puerto Rican corals have expelled the algae that give them their hues. At first, in the middle of last summer, only a small ...
Great Barrier Reef: a youngster to the core. (age of the reef)
Dec 08, 1990; ... Great Barrier Reef: A youngster to the core Once deemed as ancient as 20 million years, Australia's Great Barrier Reef now appears a mere babe in the waters -- an infant whose growth has waxed and waned markedly with fluxes in sea level. Geoscientists on a recent ...
Astro eyes new signs of black holes. (Astro Observatory)
Dec 15, 1990; ... Astro Eyes New Signs of Black Holes Overcoming a series of technical calamities that threatened to dim its view of the X-ray and ultraviolet universe, the Astro Observatory aboard the space shuttle Columbia last week found new evidence suggesting that black holes lurk at the ...
Milk from engineered hormone: udderly safe. (milk from cows treated with recombinant bovine somatotropin)
Dec 15, 1990; ... Milk from engineered hormone: Udderly safe Milk from cows treated with a drug that increases milk production is safe for consumption, a panel of scientists and physicians assembled by the National Institutes of Health unanimously concluded last week. The panel's report rejected ...
Asthma drug may do more harm than good. (fenoterol)
Dec 15, 1990; ... Asthma drug may do more harm than good A bronchodilator drug used to open airways may actually exacerbate asthma when used routinely, according to a yearlong study of asthma patients in New Zealand. If related drugs cause similar effects, the finding may help explain a widespread ...
Risky business: tackling computer security.
Dec 15, 1990; ... Risky business: Tackling computer security NASA created the Space Physics Analysis Network a decade ago to enable scientists conducting NASA-related research to share data and ideas. But scientists were not the only users of this computer network. From 1981 into 1989, ...
Did Earth give clues prior to Bay quake? (San Francisco Bay Area earthquake of October, 1989)
Dec 15, 1990; ... DidEarth give clues prior to Bay quake? For residents of the San Francisco Bay area, last year's Loma Prieta earthquake hit without warning. But researchers reported last week that the Earth may have provided hints of the deadly jolt months and days before it actually struck -- ...
Meaty findings about colon cancer and diet. (red meat consumption increases cancer risk)
Dec 15, 1990; ... Meaty findings about colon cancer and diet A large-scale, prospective study offers strong support for the long-standing suspicion that people who regularly eat red meat increase their risk of colon cancer. The study also turned up several new dietary indluences -- most notably ...
AIDS: long research road still looms ahead.
Dec 15, 1990; ... AIDS: Long research road still looms ahead Three basic research reports provide useful insights into the AIDS-causing virus (HIV), but the news that emerges is not all heartening. In particular, one study suggests that an experimental drug called soluble CD4 appears less ...
College classes spur lifelong math memory.
Dec 15, 1990; ... College classes spur lifelong math memory People who take college mathematics courses at or above the level of calculus retain most of their knowledge of high school algebra or geometry up to 50 years later, while those who take no college mathematics courses suffer steep declines ...
Zona blasters: there's more than one way to crack an egg. (new methods to give sperm a better chance of penetrating the outer shell of a human egg) (Cover Story)
Dec 15, 1990; ... Zona Blasters The microscopic human egg floats in its fluid-filled shell. Suddenly, thousands of tiny sperm bombard it. Lashing their tails to power their entry, they bore into the shell, a tough glycoprotein coating known as the zona pellucida. One particularly vigorous sperm ...
Glimpses of AIDS and male prostitution.
Dec 15, 1990; ... Glimpses of AIDS and male prostitution A 13-month study of male prostitutes,commonly known as hustlers, indicates these men court infection with the AIDS virus mainly through intravenous drug use and unpaid homosexual activity, not transactions with their clients. ...
Monkeying with Proconsul's hip. (fossil ape)
Dec 15, 1990; ... Monkeying with Proconsul's hip In 1985, fossil hunters working near Kenya's Lake Victoria uncovered a nearly complete left hip bone belonging to Proconsul, a "formative ape" that lived between about 22 million and 14 million years ago (SN: 1/12/85, p.26). Analysis of the rare ...
Larger grave for the Himalaya. (possible blanket of sediment with petroleum deposits in the Bay of Bengal)
Dec 15, 1990; ... Larger grave for the Himalaya Even as plate tectonic forces continue to push up Mount Everest and its sister peaks, wind and water slowly erode the Himalaya mountains into tiny grains that eventually wash into the Bay of Bengal. A team of geophysicists now estimates that the bay ...
What's holding up the high Sierras? (underlying rock)
Dec 15, 1990; ... What's holding up the High Sierras? Since the 1920s, geologists have believed that the high peaks of the Sierra Nevada rest atop a thick root of buoyant crustal rock that supports the fabled California range. But seismologists who have analyzed earthquake waves passing beneath ...
The New Madrid quack. (earthquake predictions of Iben Browning)
Dec 15, 1990; ... The New Madrid quack The mood among top earthquake experts ranged from angry to anxious to amused as national attention recently focused on New Madrid, Mo. -- a town at the center of one of the more controversial earthquake predictions in years. The New Madrid fault zone ...
Crystal growers seek bacterial know-how.... (sulfur-absorbing bacteria may help crystals grow)
Dec 15, 1990; ... Crystal growers seek bacterial know-how . . . Three species of sulfur-absorbing bacteria discovered last year hold a magnetic attraction for Brigid R. Heywood, a crystal engineer at the University of Bath, England. Inside these creatures, minuscule chains of crystal particles ...
... And bigger crystals in space. (crystallization experiments)
Dec 15, 1990; ... . . . and bigger crystals in space The date March 30, 1992, already means a lot to chemical engineer Albert Sacco Jr., of the Worcester (Mass.) Polytechnic Institute. That's when shuttle flight STS-53 is scheduled to launch crystallization experiments dreamed up eight years ago by ...
Blob tectonics on Venus. (geology)
Dec 15, 1990 ... Blob tectonics on Venus Planetary scientists have debated for more than a decade whether some form of the plate tectonics that shaped Earth also molded the surface of Venus. Now two researchers suggest that some of the most dramatic features on Venus result not from plate ...
Galileo's quick look at Venus. (space probe)
Dec 15, 1990 ... Galileo's quick look at Venus Scientists have finally received the pictures of Venus' atmosphere taken in February by the Galileo spacecraft as it whipped around the planet -- one of a series of maneuvers that will give Galileo the speed needed to propel it to Jupiter, where it ...
Early results of gene therapy encouraging. (being tested as a treatment for immune deficiency)
Dec 22, 1990; ... Early Results of Gene Therapy Encouraging Less than months after she received the first federally approved infusion of genetically engineered cells to cure a disease, a young girl with a life-threatening immune deficiency shows signs of improvement, researchers reported last week ....
Reading climate changes in an Ice Age map. (levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide)
Dec 22, 1990; ... Reading climate changes in an Ice Age map Long before the age of automobiles, long before the invention of the wheel, natural events caused atmospheric carbon dioxide levels to climb dramtically at the end of the last Ice Age. Uncovering reasons for that increase may help ...
Proven path for limiting shortest shortcut. (the mathematics of shortening a network of lines connecting a given set of points)
Dec 22, 1990; ... Proven path for limiting shortest shortcut Agony Airlines regularly flies passengers between Salt Lake City and Phoenix and between Phoenix and Los Angeles. The two routes connecting the three cites total 877 miles. However, by adding a hub at Las Vegas and routing all its ...
Women and kids join the cholesterol fray. (cholesterol-lowering drugs for women, children with high cholesterol)
Dec 22, 1990; ... Women and kids join the cholesterol fray A regimen of cholesterol-lowering drugs shinks fatty plaques narrowing the coronary arteries in women -- as well as men -- who suffer from a genetic defect that puts them at high risk of heart attacks, a new study shows. In a field clogged ...
Exploring ceramic vaccines, drug carriers.
Dec 22, 1990; ... Exploring ceramic vaccines, drug carriers Make a bunch of virus-sized ceramic particles. Now coat them with a laboratory-designed, carbohydrate-like goo, and then let proteins derived from health-wrecking microbes or viruses stick to it. What have you got? "We may ...
New and primordial role for ribozymes? (role of RNA molecules in the origin of life)
Dec 22, 1990; ... New and priomordial role for ribozymes? According to some origin-of-life theories, the DNA-based genetic machinery found in almost all modern organisms arose from an ancient "RNA world" (SN: 10/7/89, p.229). Evidence for this scenario stems mainly from the recent discovery of ...
Rat removal converts shrublands to grass. (Arizona)
Dec 22, 1990; ... Rat removal converts shrublands to grass James H. Brown wasn't looking for greener pastures, but he found them anyway. When he and his colleagues fenced off sections of the Chihuahuan Desert in 1977, excluding certain rat species from small plots of shrubland in southeastern ...
Some autism tied to rare fetal disorders.
Dec 22, 1990; ... Some autism tied to rare fetal disorders Any of a dozen rare diseases affecting the brain may, when experienced in the womb or during infancy, increase one's risk of autism, a new study concludes. Data gleaned from a study of nearly all Utah's residents show that one in 10 cases ...
Fingerprints in the sand: federal agents use dirty evidence against archaeological thieves. (Cover Story)
Dec 22, 1990; ... Fingerprints in the Sand The moon rises heavy over New Mexico's high desert, casting its rays on scattered juniper trees, pinyon pines and a crime in progress. Two men have just plundered the remnants of an ancient dwelling in the Gila National Forest and are loading up sacks ...
Poetry lessons: bridging the chasm between the sciences and the humanities. (engineering and science professors at Cornell University take a poetry course)
Dec 22, 1990; ... Poetry Lessons The room echoed with the familiar sounds of a first day of class: nervous coughs, creaking chairs, shuffling feet, scratching pens and cracking notebook pages. Unspoken questions hung in the air: What am I doing here? How will I stack up against the others? What ...
Watching the next Hawaiian island. (Loihi seamount)
Dec 22, 1990; ... Watching the next Hawaiian island Like a baby baboon riding on its mother's back, Loihi seamount is a mere infant perched on the flank of Hawaii's "Big Island." But this young underwater volcano is still growing and may top the ocean waves in 50,000 years. To study Loihi's ...
The seismograph: a new home appliance?
Dec 22, 1990; ... The seismograph: A new home appliance? They might not have the same appeal as videocassette recorders or microwave ovens, but personal seismographs could become a hot item in the San Francisco Bay area if a new proposal gains momentum. Seismologist Edward Cranswick of ...
Pinpointing Utah's seismic threats. (Wasatch fault)
Dec 22, 1990; ... Pinpointing Utah's seismic threats Eighty percent of Utah's residents live along a quake-prone structure called the Wasatch fault. Geologists have long warned of the danger from the fault but have lacked sufficient information to identify the areas at greatest risk. Now, in the first ...
Redesigning the U.S. space program. (a panel appointed by NASA reports on the future in space)
Dec 22, 1990 ... Redesigning the U.S. space program President Bush's proposal that NASA send astronauts to Mars in 2019 won approval in principle from a panel assessing the future of the U.S. space program, but the group declined to support a specific date. "The long-term objective of human ...
Science news of the year. (review of important news stories of 1990)
Dec 22, 1990 ... SCIENCE NEWS of the Year 1990 Anthropology * Microscopic analysis of horses' teeth from a Ukrainian site indicated that people domesticated and rode horses about 6,000 years ago, much earlier than previously thought (137:340). * Linguists ...
Plants bite back: insect-infested hosts starve out unwanted guests, and may even warn their neighbors. (includes information on pest-eating allies)
Dec 22, 1990; ... Plants Bite Back Imagine yourself a beetle in culinary heaven, chomping on a tender tomato leaf. But wait: Your bites have tripped a biological security system, sending an alarm signal coursing through the plant. Your host starts to churn out noxious substances that permeate ...