Science News back issues from July 2001:
Letters.
Jul 07, 2001 ... Grandmother's dirty laundry "Dirty money harbors bacterial dangers" (SN: 6/2/01, p. 344) brought back memories of my beloved grandmother in the 1920s. She always washed and ironed her dollar bills because she considered them to be unsanitary. <Pre> F. Eleanor Warner ...
Landfills Make Mercury More Toxic.(need for landfill emissions studies)(Brief Article)
Jul 07, 2001; ... Mercury, a nerve poison, is a major ingredient in many products--from thermometers and fluorescent bulbs to batteries and old latex paint. A new study finds that landfill disposal of such products can chemically alter the mercury in them, not only rendering it more toxic but also fostering ...
Have a heart: Turn on just a single gene.(Brief Article)
Jul 07, 2001; ... There's no single gene for being kind, but there seems to be one for being heartless. A lone gene appears to act as the master switch in embryonic heart formation, researchers report in the June 29 CELL. When mutated, the gene makes an impaired version of its protein, which ...
Is Nessie merely a bad case of the shakes?(Loch Ness monster)(Brief Article)
Jul 07, 2001; ... Sightings of the Loch Ness Monster have variously been attributed to ancient marine reptiles that somehow survived extinction, uncommonly large sturgeon, and too much Scotch whiskey. Now, an Italian scientist contends that the original source of the monster's legend, as well as the basis ...
Andromeda feasts on its satellite galaxies.(Brief Article)
Jul 07, 2001; ... Often referred to as the Milky Way's big sister, the nearby galaxy Andromeda is about twice as large as our own galaxy and has a similar spiral shape. A new study reveals another feature that the two have in common: Both are cannibals. Observations of distant galaxies still ...
Nicotine spurs vessel growth, maybe cancer.(Brief Article)
Jul 07, 2001; ... More than 4,000 chemicals make up cigarette smoke, and many of them can damage a person's health. But the bete noire of the lot is nicotine, a compound that is simultaneously pleasure-inducing, addictive, and--at high doses--poisonous. A new study adds another trait: Nicotine in mice has ...
Physicist steps up to be science adviser.(John Marburger of Brookhaven National Laboratory)(Brief Article)
Jul 07, 2001; ... President Bush has announced that he intends to nominate John Marburger, the head of Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, N.Y., as his science adviser. The President may call on Marburger for advice on a wide range of policy decisions, including the science budget, missile defense, ...
Tree pollen exploits surrogate mothers.(Algerian cypress can grow without fertilization)(Brief Article)
Jul 07, 2001; ... A rare kind of desert tree can manage a bit of sexual wizardry that scientists have never seen before in a plant, reports an international research team. An Algerian cypress releases pollen that can develop without fertilization, using another tree species' female organs instead ...
Wee dots yield rainbow of molecule markers.(biomolecules)(Brief Article)
Jul 07, 2001; ... By tagging biomolecules like runners in a race, researchers can track complex interactions that occur in many biological arenas. Now, chemists report a scheme for creating a versatile color-based tagging system out of tiny atomic clusters, called quantum dots. The new method may enable ...
Stone Age folk in Asia adapted to extremes.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
Jul 07, 2001; ... The Chang Tang Nature Reserve, situated 12,000 feet above sea level in the north western part of China's Tibetan Plateau, features bitter cold, sparse vegetation, cutting winds, and little water. Scientists have now obtained preliminary evidence that people nonetheless colonized this ...
Killer yeast win epic battle of toxins.(brewer's yeast cells)(Brief Article)
Jul 07, 2001; ... Normally peaceful, brewer's yeast cells get ornery once a certain virus infiltrates them. The virus reprograms the infiltrated yeast cells to secrete a toxin that opens pores in neighboring yeast and kills them. Vintners rely on this feat to help clear out undesirable yeast strains that ...
Textbooks brace for nuclear challenge.(indications that cell's nucleus participates in protein synthesis)(Brief Article)
Jul 07, 2001; ... New data threaten to shake up 30 years of scientific dogma regarding how a cell carries out one of its most basic tasks: the translation of the genetic code into proteins. According to a study appearing in an upcoming SCIENCE, the cell's nucleus takes part in the task of ...
Insight into preemies' blindness.(premature babies:retinopathy of prematurity)(Brief Article)
Jul 07, 2001; ... About 5 percent of premature babies suffer vision losses, including blindness, due to a condition known as retinopathy of prematurity. The damage occurs when excessive growth of blood vessels and other tissue pulls the newborn's retinas away from the walls of their eyes. Now, researchers ...
Vitamin E benefits cattle, too.(immune systems benefit from vitamin E)(Brief Article)
Jul 07, 2001; ... Low-level infections in cattle can slow the animals' growth and stress their immune systems. That's why farmers often feed animals small amounts of antibiotics. But such chronic antibiotic use can speed the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, which then may end up infecting ...
Blood points to pollution's heart risks.(air pollution can contribute to heart problems)(Brief Article)
Jul 07, 2001; ... Hospitals admit more patients for heart problems on days when air pollution is bad. A new study reveals that as airborne concentrations of fine dust particles climb, so do three blood factors that increase an individual's heart attack risk. Joel Schwartz of the Harvard School of ...
A foamy threat to ozone.(chlorofluorocarbon-11, from polyurethane foam insulation)(Brief Article)
Jul 07, 2001; ... U.S. residents junk some 8 million refrigerators annually. The unrecyclable components, including polyurethane foam insulation, often go into community landfills. Through the early 1990s, this foam usually incorporated chlorofluorocarbon-11 (CFC-11), a gas that destroys stratospheric ...
Faces of Perception.(the study, and implications, of face recognition in infants)
Jul 07, 2001; ... It's tough to explain how people so easily tell one face from another Newborn babies are wrinkled, wide-eyed strangers in a strange land of light, shadow, and color. Nonetheless, these little bundles of visual innocence take an immediate shine to faces. Just a few ...
Telltale Heart.(developmental biology: studying the genes for heart development)
Jul 07, 2001; ... Researchers are uncovering the genetic plan for building a heart When Eldad Tzahor cut a small piece of tissue from the front end of a chicken embryo and placed it on a glass laboratory dish, he intended to observe, as he had before, how the head develops. He would watch the ...
Earliest Ancestor Emerges in Africa.(Ardipithecus remains found)(Brief Article)
Jul 14, 2001; ... Our ancient kin have taken a big step back in time. An international team working in Ethiopia has found bones and teeth of the earliest known hominid, a member in good standing of humanity's evolutionary family. The fragmentary remains come from at least five individuals--in the ...
Antimatter mystery transcends new data.(properties of the universe)(Brief Article)
Jul 14, 2001; ... Physicists have finally answered a decades-old question about the difference between matter and antimatter. Yet their finding only deepens the mystery of why the universe contains so much more matter than antimatter. Last week, researchers at the Stanford (Calif.) Linear ...
New type of hydrothermal vent looms large.(Atlantic Ocean discovery)(Brief Article)
Jul 14, 2001; ... A newly found hydrothermal vent system, which its discoverers have dubbed the Lost City, rises on an undersea mountain in the Atlantic Ocean. The mineral deposits produced by these vents include, at 18 stories tall, the largest ever observed. The deposits rise like chimneys above the ...
Titanium dioxide hogs the spotlight.(uses and research results)(Brief Article)
Jul 14, 2001; ... In their unending quest to improve day-to-day life, researchers have processed a common pigment into a form that could lead to new generations of self-sterilizing bathroom tiles and antifog mirrors. Each year, the United States produces some 1.5 million tons of titanium dioxide, ...
Vitamin A calibrates a heart clock, 24-7.(how hormones control cycles of the heart)(Brief Article)
Jul 14, 2001; ... Teenagers can make it seem as if hormones control the cycles of the heart. Now, scientists have proved it. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia have shown that a molecular clock in the circulatory system oscillates in a 24-hour rhythm in step with cells ...
Sticky platelets boost blood clots.(complications from angioplasty procedure more likely to result if patient has platelets that stick)(Brief Article)
Jul 14, 2001; ... Platelets are tiny, cell-like components in the blood that aggregate to form clots. They're indispensable for closing wounds, but after injury caused by atherosclerosis in an artery, their automatic response can clog the vessel. Scientists now report that people with platelets ...
Radiation harms blood vessels before gut.(side effects of radiation therapy)(Brief Article)
Jul 14, 2001; ... When physicians aim radiation at a tumor in the pancreas or irradiate the entire body of someone with leukemia, the therapy can devastate the stomach and abdomen. Nausea, diarrhea, infections, and even death may result. These responses occur because the radiation wipes out the ...
Tests hint bird tails are misunderstood.(aerodynamic analysis of bird tails)(Brief Article)
Jul 14, 2001; ... In the hotly debated matter of bird-tail aerodynamics, the first wind tunnel measurements indicate that the prevailing theory may be wrong. The basic avian tail has the triangular shape of supersonic planes like the Concorde, explains Jeremy Rayner at the University of Leeds in ...
Amazon forest could disappear, soon.(environmental effects of deforestation)(Brief Article)
Jul 14, 2001 ... A new computer model that includes a forest's effect on regional climate shows that the Amazon rain forest could disappear much more rapidly than previously expected. Rain forests depend on large amounts of precipitation to remain lush. Much of the moisture taken in by a trees' ...
Atlanta leaves big chemical footprint.(drinking water pollution from Atlanta, Georgia, spreads south)(Brief Article)
Jul 14, 2001 ... Analysis of water quality downstream of Atlanta shows that some pollutants from the city are still detectable more than 500 kilometers away. Atlanta, one of the fastest growing metropolitan areas in the eastern United States, already sprawls across an area larger than the state ...
The Silence of the Bams.(difficulty of detecting nuclear arms tests)
Jul 14, 2001; ... Is it possible to hide a nuclear detonation? In the predawn hours of July 16, 1945, an explosion rocked the desert of central New Mexico. The flash of light from the blast lit the sky statewide, and residents felt the shock wave as far as 160 miles away. U.S. Army officials ...
Sticky Situations.(how bacteria colonize and adhere to surfaces)
Jul 14, 2001; ... Scientists are beginning to understand how bacteria find strength in numbers Every night, a social transformation takes place right under your nose. As you sleep, millions of bacteria in your mouth switch from being free-living drifters to established community members. Those ...
Does lack of sleep lead to diabetes?(sleep deprivation may decrease insulin sensitivity)(Brief Article)
Jul 14, 2001; ... One hundred years ago, adults in the United States averaged 9 hours of sleep per night. Today, that average is less than 7 hours. Although researchers have shown that lack of sleep can impair mental function, they have yet to demonstrate any physical consequences of sleep deprivation. ...
Arthritis drug succeeds vs. psoriasis.(infliximab)(Brief Article)
Jul 14, 2001; ... The drug infliximab, normally prescribed for arthritis, seems also to work against the chronic skin disease psoriasis. The benefits were akin to those induced by cyclosporin, a potent immune suppressant routinely prescribed for psoriasis. Scientists gave 33 psoriasis patients ...
Marijuana may boost heart attack risk.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
Jul 14, 2001; ... Researchers have recorded several instances in which otherwise healthy people have suffered heart attacks shortly after smoking marijuana, the most commonly used illegal drug in the United States. Experiments have also linked marijuana use to elevated blood pressure and decreased oxygen ...
Insulin shots fail to prevent diabetes.(type 1 diabetes study)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
Jul 14, 2001; ... Physicians can identify children or young adults who are likely to develop type I, or juvenile-onset, diabetes. These people have a relative with the disease, and their blood carries a telltale antibody against islet cells in the pancreas. These cells produce insulin, the hormone needed to ...
Letters.
Jul 21, 2001 ... Selenium solution? Both smokers and nonsmokers should appreciate results of studies of the effect of organic selenium on angiogenesis ("Nicotine spurs vessel growth, maybe cancer," SN: 7/7/01, p. 6). A report last year by Cheng Jiang et al. in MOLECULAR CARCINOGENESIS (vol. 29, ...
CORRECTION.(Correction Notice)
Jul 21, 2001 ... In "Babies may thrive on wordless conversation" (SN: 6/23/01, p. 390), the lead researcher of the study described is Joseph Jaffe, not Jerome Jaffe. ...
Ebola May Enter Cell via Folate Gate.(Brief Article)
Jul 21, 2001; ... Every virus thrives by invading cells, replicating within them, and then spreading to other cells. Unlike a burglar who crudely breaks into a residence, however, a virus uses its own proteins as molecular keys to unlock cells. Deadly Ebola virus and its cousin Marburg virus are ...
Environment's stuck with nonstick coatings.(Teflon and other coatings can degrate into pollutants)(Brief Article)
Jul 21, 2001; ... The family of nonstick materials that includes Teflon can degrade into pollutants that persist in the environment, new research suggests. Known as fluoropolymers, these coatings get their tough and slippery traits from fluorine atoms strongly bonded to the materials' carbon ...
Obscure brain chemicals draw new attention.(trace amines)(Brief Article)
Jul 21, 2001; ... When it comes to the chemistry of the human brain, dopamine and serotonin are the reigning stars. Like other neurotransmitters, they trigger and modulate the electrical signals that nerve cells use to communicate. In comparison, the chemicals called trace amines are considered ...
Atlantic coast may be in for a pounding.(increased number and intensity of hurricanes expected)(Brief Article)
Jul 21, 2001; ... The above-average number of major hurricanes in the North Atlantic during the past 6 years may signal a weather trend that could threaten Central America, the Caribbean, and the eastern United States for decades to come. Hurricane activity in the Atlantic Ocean north of the ...
Optics oddity challenges microchip makers.(intrinsic birefringence)(Brief Article)
Jul 21, 2001; ... An obscure optical effect that had faded from view for more than a century suddenly has become a hot topic for microelectronics producers. New studies show that this effect, called intrinsic birefringence, could incapacitate the next generation of factory tools for making chips. ...
Landing data confirm Eros' primitive nature.(data from asteroid)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
Jul 21, 2001; ... When a spacecraft for the first time left its footprint on an asteroid this past February, it was more than an engineering feat. By landing on the city-length rock called 433 Eros (SN: 2/17/01, p. 103), the spacecraft enabled its gamma-ray spectrometer to make measurements of unprecedented ...
Herpes virus homes in on cancer target.(HSV-1 can kill cancer cells)(Brief Article)
Jul 21, 2001; ... A virus well known for the painful cold sores it causes is currently being tested as a treatment for patients' malignant tumors. New findings by researchers at the University of Calgary in Alberta show how the virus, herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV-1), does selective damage to cancerous ...
Depression therapies converge in brain.(brain response to psychotherapy and antidepressants)(Brief Article)
Jul 21, 2001; ... People diagnosed with major depression display many of the same brain changes when their condition improves whether in response to antidepressant drug treatment or to a type of psychotherapy, two preliminary investigations find. If confirmed in further work, these results will ...
A comet continues to crumble.(Brief Article)
Jul 21, 2001; ... A comet discovered last January just can't keep itself together. Ever since astronomers first spied the object, dubbed C/2001 A2, it's been breaking up. The first sign that the comet might be undergoing some kind of upheaval came in March, when the body suddenly brightened ....
A new giant in the Kuiper belt.(cluster of comets)(Brief Article)
Jul 21, 2001; ... When it comes to the biggest bodies in the solar system beyond Neptune, Pluto tops the list. Charon, Pluto's moon, has always been designated the runner-up. Astronomers now have for the first time found an object that's slightly bigger than Charon. It's an icy body in the Kuiper ...
A bad month for condors.(California condors breeding trouble in wild)(Brief Article)
Jul 21, 2001; ... Last month, a California condor hatched on a remote California cliff (SN: 6/30/01, p. 406). It was the first to hatch in the wild since a federal condor-restoration program began repopulating the environment with captive-bred members of this endangered species in 1992. Alas, the chick ...
Shut up! A thunderstorm's on the way.(some flowers close during thunderstorm)(Brief Article)
Jul 21, 2001; ... For the first time, biologists have shown that a flower pinches shut during thunderstorms, shielding its reproductive parts from pounding, drowning rain. Despite their reputation as a stick-in-the-mud, most plant species can move some part of their anatomy, explains William K ....
Alarming Butterflies and Go-Getter Fish.(speciation and splitting of species)
Jul 21, 2001; ... Overlooked ways to invent new species There's a trick at the top of evolutionary biologist James Mallet's Web page, where five pairs of tropical Heliconius butterflies pose in a double row. Each pair flashes a distinctive pattern of colored bands across dark wings ....
Power Harvests.(wind power for farms)
Jul 21, 2001; ... The salvation of many U.S. farmers may be blowing in the wind During the Vietnam War, Daniel Juhl toiled as a missile-guidance technician. But when he left the service, he says, "there wasn't a lot of call for my training. So, I thought I'd turn my spears into plowshares." ...
Thinking blurs when blood sugar strays.(hyperglycemics may experience impaired thinking)(Brief Article)
Jul 21, 2001; ... Once assumed to pose mainly long-term health risks, hyperglycemia--or too much sugar in the blood--also can slow mental capacity in the short term, according to a new study. Other work shows low concentrations of sugar in the blood, leaving a person weak and groggy, can impair driving. ...
Reptilian drug may help treat diabetes.(synthetic compound akin to lizard venom)(Brief Article)
Jul 21, 2001; ... The synthetic version of a compound in lizard venom seems to complement insulin and help people with diabetes steady their sugar metabolism, a new study finds. The drug, called exendin-4, is a protein fragment that researchers originally isolated from Gila monster venom. Exendin-4 ...
Letters.(Letter to the Editor)
Jul 28, 2001 ... Hot topic In the space of a single paragraph ("Global warming debate gets hotter," SN: 6/16/01, p. 372), you report that the National Academy of Sciences and the United Nations conclude that human activity "very likely" has caused global warming and that "uncertainties remain ...
CORRECTION.(Correction Notice)
Jul 28, 2001 ... "Faces of perception" (SN: 7/7/01, p. 10) should have credited psychologist Michael J. Tarr of Brown University in Providence, ...
New Antibiotics Take Poke at Bacteria.(Brief Article)
Jul 28, 2001; ... Imagine a roll of LifeSavers. Now, mentally shrink that stack of candy rings to a few nanometers in length, making it smaller than a cell. That image offers a sense of the unusual structure behind a potential new class of antibiotics developed by M. Reza Ghadiri of the Scripps ...
Setting electronics in artificial stone.(cement as electonic conducter)(Brief Article)
Jul 28, 2001; ... Concrete slabs generally don't do much except support structures and enclose space. If some researchers have it their way, however, those slabs may double as components in electronic circuits. Materials scientists at the State University of New York at Buffalo have made crude ...
Craft tracks giant dust storm on Mars.(Mars Global Suveyor)(Brief Article)
Jul 28, 2001; ... It's the beginning of dust season on Mars, and the first dust storm is a whopper. Engulfing the entire planet, the storm is the largest observed on the Red Planet in the past 25 years and already has raised the temperature of the frigid Martian atmosphere by 30 [degrees] C. ...
Bacteria live inside bacteria in mealybug.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
Jul 28, 2001; ... The ability of life forms to co-opt each other has taken a novel twist: Scientists have provided the first proof that a bacterium takes up long-term residence inside another bacterium. Both the host and the tenant, in turn, dwell inside a mealybug, which passes the bacteria on through its ...
Synthetic protein may yield malaria vaccine.(Brief Article)
Jul 28, 2001; ... A lab-made version of a protein found on the parasite that causes most serious cases of malaria elicits a potent immune response when given to people, suggesting it could become the basis of a vaccine against the disease. No malaria vaccine has yet proved practical in people, ...
Deaf kids establish own sign language.(Brief Article)
Jul 28, 2001; ... Children learn their native language with remarkable ease. This feat has inspired a long-running scientific debate about whether youngsters innately grasp underlying linguistic rules, or grammar, without having to learn them. In a finding sure to fuel this argument, two ...
Climate accord reached.(accord reached on Kyoto Protocol without US)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
Jul 28, 2001; ... On Monday in Bonn, negotiators from 178 nations reached an accord that should help transform the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on global warming into a binding international treaty. They did it without the United States. Last month, President Bush repeatedly warned that his administration ...
For past climate clues, ask a stalag-mite.(cave fossils reveal climate history)(Brief Article)
Jul 28, 2001; ... Scientists have turned to mites fossilized in cave formations to show in a novel way that the American Southwest at times during the past few thousand years was much wetter and cooler than it is now. Hidden Cave lies at an altitude of about 2,000 meters in the Guadalupe ...
Don't look now, but is that dog laughing?(research of dog exhalations)(Brief Article)
Jul 28, 2001; ... Amid all the panting, a dog at play makes a distinctive, breathy exhalation that can trigger playfulness in other dogs, says a Nevada researcher. Yes, it might be the dog version of a laugh. "To an untrained human ear, it sounds much like a pant, `hhuh, hhuh,'" says Patricia ...
Bow-wowing them with radar.(using radar to create replicas of asteroids)(Brief Article)
Jul 28, 2001 ... At the end of a lecture that he gave at the Asteroids 2001 meeting in Santa Flavia, Italy, last month, astronomer Steve Ostro reached into his backpack and threw a bunch of dog bones into the audience. The crowd couldn't get enough. No, the scientists weren't hungering for ...
Biotechnology may fortify U.S. Army.(military uses of biotechnology advances)(Brief Article)
Jul 28, 2001 ... Peering down on future battlefields, U.S. military satellites may tell friends from foes by sensing residues of what friendly troops had for dinner. The spacecraft would detect on a soldier's breath or skin biomolecules or even microorganisms deliberately mixed into the food to label U.S ....