Science News back issues from March 2002:
No olympian: analysis hints T. rex ran slowly, if at all. (This Week).(Brief Article)
Mar 02, 2002; ... Tyrannosaurus rex, a bipedal meat eater considered by many to be the most fearsome dinosaur of its day, may not have been the swift Jeep-chaser portrayed in Jurassic Park. Scientists figure that for a 6,000-kilogram adult T. rex to dash along in high gear, as much as 86 percent of its body ...
Good grief: bereaved adjust well without airing emotion. (This Week).(Brief Article)
Mar 02, 2002; ... Mental-health workers have long theorized that it takes grueling emotional exertion to recover from the death of a loved one. So-called grief work, now the stock-in-trade of a growing number of grief counselors, entails confronting the reality of a loved one's demise and grappling with the ...
Ambitious mission: hubble slated to get one heckuva tune-up. (This Week).(Brief Article)
Mar 02, 2002; ... If all goes according to plan next week, astronauts aboard the space shuttle Columbia will embark on the fourth and most technically challenging mission to replace damaged parts and install new detectors on the Hubble Space Telescope. After catching Hubble with the shuttle's ...
Broken weapon: mutation disarms HIV-fighting gene. (This Week).(Brief Article)
Mar 02, 2002; ... A gene that once produced a small protein able to prevent HIV from infecting cells now lies unusable in the human genome, scientists have found. In addition to suggesting a new weapon in the battle against AIDS, this so-called pseudogene reignites speculation about why infection with HIV ...
Honey-scented elephants: young males' faces drip sweet signals. (This Week).(Brief Article)
Mar 02, 2002; ... When testosterone begins spiking in young Asian bull elephants, they secrete a liquid from their facial glands that smells like honey, says an international team of researchers. Ancient Hindu poetry referred to bees gathering "sweetness" from elephants, but a paper in the Feb ....
Thin jet flies two for one: double streams yield sheathed nanoballs, fibers. (This Week).(Brief Article)
Mar 02, 2002; ... Powerful electric fields can stretch liquids into narrow jets that burst into sprays of droplets. This phenomenon has revolutionized mass spectrometry, a technique for weighing a sample's constituent atoms and molecules. Meanwhile, some industries are testing the technique, known as ...
Copy crab: DNA confirms that crab forms have several origins. (This Week).(Brief Article)
Mar 02, 2002; ... New genetic evidence suggests that crabs aren't all close relatives and their characteristic shape evolved independently on numerous occasions. Most crabs share such a similar overall shape that they might seem to have come from the same evolutionary origin. Nevertheless, ...
Protein repair: new compounds may help cells fight off cancer. (This Week).(Brief Article)
Mar 02, 2002; ... Like a frontline soldier dozing on his rifle, a gene called p53 lies dormant in every cell. At the first signs of cancer, however, the gene springs into action. The protein that it encodes binds to the cell's DNA and initiates a chain reaction that usually leads to cell suicide--and thus ...
Avalanche! Scientists are digging out the secrets of lethal flows of snow.
Mar 02, 2002; ... Dan Miller, like many graduate students, spends a fair amount of time crouched over a hotplate in a small room. What sets him apart from most others are the parka and gloves he wears while doing so. The temperature in Miller's 4-by-6-meter room can drop to -30 [degrees] C. It's like a meat ...
Tracking tumors: looking for early signs of a therapy's success.
Mar 02, 2002; ... Patience is a virtue ... sometimes. For people with cancer, patience can be deadly--but they often have no alternative. A treatment can take months to shrink a tumor measurably, slow tumor growth, or prove itself ineffective. While doctors and patients wait on such sluggish gauges of ...
Encouraging signs but no woodpecker. (Biology).(bird watchers detect audible, but not visual, evidence of an ivory-billed woodpecker)
Mar 02, 2002 ... Birders searching a Louisiana forest this winter for the long-lost ivory-billed woodpecker heard a knock-knock and would dearly love to know who's there. The ivory-billed woodpecker, with its 31-inch wingspan and 20-inch length, hasn't been documented in the United States since ...
High homocysteine tied to Alzheimer's. (Biomedicine).(homocysteine, an amino acid)(Brief Article)
Mar 02, 2002 ... For the first time, research has linked the incidence of Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia to elevated blood concentrations of the amino acid homocysteine. Scientists had previously connected high homocysteine concentrations to heart disease and stroke, maladies associated a ...
Littlest catalysts get a lot of support. (Technology).(Brief Article)
Mar 02, 2002 ... Industry has long used reactive metal clusters stuck to larger, inert particles as chemical catalysts. Today, developers of catalysts are making those clusters as small as possible to maximize exposed metal and thus speed up reactions. New experiments reveal a surprise: With ...
Coffee beans, cavity-causing germs. (Biomedicine).(research indicates that coffee may reduce tooth decay)(Brief Article)
Mar 02, 2002 ... Coffee could be good for your smile. In a new study, compounds in coffee loosen the grip of bacteria that cause tooth decay. Researchers from the Universities of Pavia and Ancona in Italy prepared coffees from beans of various origins and degrees of roast. They put the brews ...
Duck-faced croc had a gap-toothed grin. (Paleontology).(no teeth were across the front of a crocodile fossil's mouth)(Brief Article)
Mar 02, 2002 ... Paleontologists have unearthed fossils of a tiny crocodile that boasted a smile like no other. The 60-centimeter-long species lived about 110 million years ago in the rivers of what would become Africa, side by side with 12-meter-long cousins that ranked among the largest ...
El Nino's coming! Is that so bad? (Climate).(expected in 2002)(Brief Article)
Mar 02, 2002 ... Recent satellite observations of rainfall patterns over the eastern Indian Ocean hint that the climate phenomenon known as El Nino--typically marked by warming of the equatorial Pacific--will return later this year. Also, although this weather maker is often blamed for droughts, freak ...
Wheat protein smooths ice cream. (Chemistry).(Brief Article)
Mar 02, 2002 ... Ice cream that sits in the freezer too long can have a gritty taste. That's because ice crystals grow large enough for the mouth to feel. Now, experiments under way in Canada are using proteins extracted from winter wheat to keep ice cream's crystals in check. The protein's ...
More good news about chocolate. (Food and Nutrition).(high-flavanol cocoa, used by the Kuna people, seems to reduce the chance of high blood pressure)(Brief Article)
Mar 02, 2002 ... How about drinking 5 cups of cocoa every day to keep your blood pressure down? That regimen appears to work for the Kuna people of Central America. The Kunas' cocoa is rich in chemicals, called flavanols, that aren't present in large amounts in commercial cocoa, say the researchers who ...
No Brahe bravo. (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)
Mar 02, 2002; ... Journey through the universe" (SN: 12/22&29/01, p. 392) illustrates the importance of astronomical instruments by suggesting that Copernicus was not "proved right" until the development by Tycho Brahe of sophisticated observational tools late in the 16th century. I think this is a ...
The world takes a stand. (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)
Mar 02, 2002; ... Reading "Sometimes lying down is harder work" (SN: 12/22&29/01, p. 391) was to me like deja vu. In the late 1950s, my late colleague Raoul Naroll concluded that more than 90 percent of the world's cultures preferred the upright position for giving birth. In my own work with ...
Alcohol rub. (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)
Mar 02, 2002; ... I enjoy Science News very much but not the occasional article singing the praises of alcoholic beverages, particularly red wine, as a benefit to the cardiovascular system ("A, glass of red may keep the arteries loose," SN: 1/5/02, p. 8). When the articles become specific concerning the ...
Star in a jar? Hints of nuclear fusion found--maybe.(Brief Article)
Mar 09, 2002; ... A group of scientists claims to have found evidence of nuclear fusion in a vase-size flask of liquid. The researchers say they created tiny bubbles that seemed to have collapsed with enough violence to force atomic nuclei to fuse. Skepticism about the results outweighs ...
Space rocks' demo job: asteroids, not comets, pummeled early Earth.(Brief Article)
Mar 09, 2002; ... It's no secret that the inner solar system took a beating from swarms of speeding objects soon after the planets and moons formed. What's been uncertain is the nature of those extraterrestrial bullets. A new analysis of meteorites suggests that it was asteroids rather than comets that ...
When the mercury falls: autumn leaves taint river with poison.(Brief Article)
Mar 09, 2002; ... Fall leaves that drop into stagnant waterways could release significant doses of a highly toxic form of mercury, new research suggests. Mercury-tainted fish pose a considerable health risk to people (SN: 3/9//91, p. 152). Before the metal can enter the aquatic food chain, ...
Odyssey's first look: craft spies signs of ice at the Martian south pole.(Brief Article)
Mar 09, 2002; ... Astronomers for the first time have found evidence of large amounts of frozen water on Mars. The Red Planet's south-polar region may contain an expanse of ice just beneath its surface, according to data gathered by the Mars Odyssey spacecraft, which began mapping the planet late last ...
Genetic culprit: mutation increases risk for uterine fibroids.(Brief Article)
Mar 09, 2002; ... Analysis of DNA from families whose women have been beset by uterine growths reveals a mutation that can predispose women to these so-called fibroids. Uterine fibroids are common, benign tumors that can cause pain, pelvic pressure, infertility, and long, heavy periods in women ...
DNA diaspora: humanity may share tangled genetic roots.(Brief Article)
Mar 09, 2002; ... The scientific debate over the nature of human evolution has taken a new, genetically inspired twist. Ancient humans migrated out of Africa in at least two major waves, and human groups in Africa, Asia, and Europe have interbred for the past 600,000 years, says geneticist Alan ...
Underground soil economy: microbes hidden in the dirt react to UV boost.(Brief Article)
Mar 09, 2002; ... Where the sun never shines, underground microbial communities still change when there's extra radiation up above, says an international research team. In a 5-year test in northern Sweden, aboveground plants didn't show major responses to experimentally boosted ultraviolet (UV) ...
Channel surfing: atomic-resolution snapshots illuminate cellular pores that control ion flow.
Mar 09, 2002; ... Sarah Hughes unexpectedly skates to a gold medal in Salt Lake City at the Winter Olympics. Barry Bonds whips a baseball bat around to smack yet another home run. At the age of 22, Garry Kasparov defeats Anatoly Karpov to become the youngest world chess champion ever. Physicist Stephen ...
A maverick reclaimed: some psychologists say it's time that Egon Brunswik got his due.
Mar 09, 2002; ... On a sabbatical trip to Vienna in 1933, Edward C. Tolman, chair of the University of California, Berkeley psychology department and a leading investigator of animal behavior, encountered what he later described as "the chance of a lifetime." At the Vienna Psychological Institute, Tolman ...
Kids' ADHD tied to snoring, sleepiness. (Behavior).(Brief Article)
Mar 09, 2002 ... Symptoms of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) occur with an intriguing frequency in children who snore throughout much of the night, a new study finds. Problems with hyperactivity and inattention also occur excessively in boys and girls up to age 14 who are ...
A bitter taste in your ... stomach. (Biology).(taste perception in animals)(Brief Article)
Mar 09, 2002 ... Animals quickly learn to avoid most foods with a bitter taste because these often contain dangerous toxins. Bitterness "is a signal telling us that something is quite wrong in the food we've ingested," says Enrique Rozengurt of the University of California, Los Angeles School of Medicine. ...
Martian equator: a watery outpost? (Astronomy).(evidence of past flooding on Mars)(Brief Article)
Mar 09, 2002 ... A catastrophic outpouring of water--four times the volume of Lake Tahoe--may have gushed from fissures near the equator on Mars as recently as 10 million years ago. Images of the fissures and their surroundings, taken by the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft, reveal landforms like those ...
Is HAART hard on the heart? (Treatment).(highly active antiretroviral therapy in HIV patients)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
Mar 09, 2002 ... Multiple-drug regimens known as highly active antiretroviral therapy, or HAART, have been literally a lifesaver for people with AIDS. But several commonly used antiretroviral drags, especially those called protease inhibitors, boost fatty acid and cholesterol concentrations in patients' ...
Genes predict allergies to drug. (Genetics).(Brief Article)
Mar 09, 2002 ... Genetic differences among people infected with HIV might help identify the 5 percent of patients who will suffer allergic reactions, ranging from rashes to anaphylactic shock, when given the antiretroviral drug abacavir. A team of Australian researchers used a genetic test to ...
New drugs help battle HIV. (Treatment).(Brief Article)
Mar 09, 2002 ... Three potential drugs in development rely on novel tactics for attacking HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. A compound dubbed BMS-806 blocks the entry of HIV into cells, reports Richard J. Colonno of Bristol-Myers Squibb in Wallingford, Conn. In test tubes, the compound inhibits ...
Two steps forward, one step back. (Vaccines).(new AIDS vaccine appears safe)(Brief Article)
Mar 09, 2002 ... Just a few days after the National Institutes of Health announced it was canceling a large AIDS-vaccine trial, researchers at this meeting announced preliminary results from a new vaccine that appears safe. Although the vaccine probably won't keep people from getting infected, it could ...
Genes, Girls, And Gamow: After The Double Helix.
Mar 09, 2002 ... JAMES D. WATSON In a sequel to his first autobiography, The Double Helix, the codiscoverer of DNA'S structure reveals the details of his life in science and in love after the years covered by the earlier book. Since his discovery with Francis Crick came in 1953, when Watson was ...
The Math Of Money: Making Mathematical Sense of Your Personal Finances.
Mar 09, 2002 ... MORTON D. DAVIS Many of us have sat in a math class and wondered, What do I need this for? This book reveals one big reason: money. Davis offers a mathematician's view of certain areas of economics and finance. For instance, he helps readers understand how interest compounds, ...
Promiscuity: An Evolutionary History of Sperm Competition.
Mar 09, 2002 ... TIM BIRKHEAD If you still subscribe to the Darwinian notion of sexual competition, which holds that only males are promiscuous by nature while females lean toward monogamy, then you are woefully behind the advances in the field of sexual physiology and selection, Birkhead ...
Tobacco: A Cultural History of How an Exotic Plant Seduced Civilization.
Mar 09, 2002 ... IAN GATELY By the time Christopher Columbus reached the shores of North America, tobacco had reached every corner of the American continents including offshore islands such as Cuba. Europeans, like the Native Americans before them, embraced tobacco with verve. But why do some ...
What Makes You Tick? The Brain in Plain English.
Mar 09, 2002 ... THOMAS B. CZERNER In a series of concise chapters, the author offers reader-friendly reports of advances in neuroscience. This overview of brain function encompasses topics from the physical interactions of neurons to notions of how ideas are formed. References to scientists ...
Scavenger scenario. (Letters).
Mar 09, 2002; ... Everyone seems to agree that the Tyrannosaurus rex Sue was seriously debilitated with perhaps a lifelong lameness ("Turn Your Head and Roar," SN: 12/15/01, p. 376). Peter L. Larson attributes her survival to care and feeding by group members. Is there evidence of group care for the injured ...
Toasted chips. (Letters).
Mar 09, 2002; ... The discovery that silicon would explode ("Detonating silicon wafers can ID elements," SN: 1/19/02, p. 36) is not news to me. I made a serendipitous discovery over 20 years ago as a computer hobbyist. I discovered that silicon would explode when ...
Objectivity objection. (Letters).
Mar 09, 2002; ... I was disappointed to see Science News depart from its usual objective reporting to cite an antinuclear propagandist as sole authority on the "dangers" of nuclear waste ("Official chooses Nevada for nuclear waste," SN: 1/19/02, p. 39) ....
Stem cell success: Mice fuel debate on embryo cloning. (This Week).(therapeutic cloning)(Brief Article)
Mar 16, 2002; ... A handful of mutant mice have fired up the debate over the cloning of human embryos to produce cells for medical use. After genetically engineering cells that had been generated by cloning mouse embryos, investigators have partially repaired the defective immune system of these animals. ...
Telescope tuned up: back to work for orbiting observatory. (This Week).(Hubble Space Telescope renovation)(Brief Article)
Mar 16, 2002; ... A rejuvenated Hubble Space Telescope floated away from the space shuttle Columbia on Saturday, March 9, after astronauts spent a week renovating the observatory. Columbia's crew began the mission March 1. Despite a problem with the shuttle's cooling system early on, the trip ...
Troubled hearts: antibiotic might fend off second attack. (This Week).(Brief Article)
Mar 16, 2002; ... An antibiotic might protect people with heart disease from future coronary events, according to the results of a small-scale trial. The study's limited scope, however, makes its conclusion tentative, some researchers say. They look forward to results of several larger trials now under way ....
Clever combo: hybrid vaccine prevents West Nile virus in mice. (This Week).(Brief Article)
Mar 16, 2002; ... A vaccine formulated from pieces of two viruses protects mice against the West Nile virus. Scientists will next try the hybrid vaccine in monkeys and then, if that works, test it in people. West Nile virus was first identified in Uganda in 1937 and was later found elsewhere in ...
Science smarts: talent search honors top student projects in math, science, and engineering. (This Week).(Intel Science Talent Search)(Brief Article)
Mar 16, 2002; ... Forty students who defy the national trend of slumping test scores in math and science reaped rewards for their excellence this week. At a black-tie dinner in Washington, D.C., the Intel Science Talent Search handed out top awards in its 2002 competition for high school seniors ....
Did Mammals Spread from Asia? Carbon blip gives clue to animals' Eden. (This Week).(Brief Article)
Mar 16, 2002; ... A new dating of Chinese fossils buttresses the idea that an Asian Eden gave rise to at least one of the groups of mammal species that appeared in North America some 55 million years ago. By analyzing the carbon and magnetic characteristics of rocks in the Lingcha Formation in ...
Heads up: problem solving pushed bright primates toward bigger brains. (This Week).(Brief Article)
Mar 16, 2002; ... Progressively larger brains evolved in primates of all stripes, not just humans. We can thank a common capacity for solving a broad range of problems, from coordinating social alliances to inventing tools, according to a new study. This conclusion challenges a popular theory ...
Are they really extinct? Searches for plants and animals so rare that they may not be there at all.
Mar 16, 2002; ... After 22 years, is it time to give up looking? Are searchers deluding themselves when they refuse to say that long-sought species have gone extinct? Such questions come to mind when talking to botanist Larry Morse of NatureServe, a biodiversity conservation group in Arlington, Va. Every ...
Rethinking an astronomical icon: the Eagle's EGGs: not so fertile.(nebula's evaporating gas globules)
Mar 16, 2002; ... In 1995, less than 2 years after astronauts installed a device to correct the Hubble Space Telescope's blurry vision, NASA released a picture that captivated millions. In it, eerie blue-green pillars of gas and dust rise up like stalagmites in a cave. In a glimpse of the universe that's ...
Eight hours of sleep may not be so great. (Biomedicine).(study shows 7 hours may be better)(Brief Article)
Mar 16, 2002 ... Doctors may recommend it for good health, but researchers now find that sleeping 8 to 9 hours a night doesn't necessarily translate into a longer life. Scientists came to that conclusion after analyzing medical and lifestyle data, including sleep reports, of 1.1 million people ...
New human virus tied to obesity. (Obesity).(adenovirus 37)(Brief Article)
Mar 16, 2002 ... Researchers have identified the second member of a class of human viruses that may increase people's susceptibility to obesity. Previous studies have shown that people and lab animals infected with a virus known as human adenovirus-36, or Ad-36, are more likely to be obese than are ...
Lack of nutrient turns flu nasty. (Nutrition And Disease).(selenium study)(Brief Article)
Mar 16, 2002 ... A dietary deficiency in an essential trace mineral may cause a usually harmless strain of the flu to mutate into a virulent pathogen. Studies have suggested that pathogens called coxsackieviruses might be more likely to mutate in hosts that are short on selenium, a metal ...
Magnetism piece fits no-resistance puzzle. (Physics).(copper oxide)(Brief Article)
Mar 16, 2002 ... Physicists hotly debate why certain copper oxide crystals can conduct electricity without resistance, or superconduct, at temperatures far higher than conventional superconductors can. Now, a German-French-Russian team led by Bernhard Keimer of the Max Planck Institute for Solid ...
Probing Jupiter's big magnetic bubble. (Astronomy).(Brief Article)
Mar 16, 2002 ... Simultaneous measurements by two spacecraft have probed in greater detail than ever before the invisible bubble of charged particles that surrounds Jupiter. The bubble, or magnetosphere, is the solar system's largest structure with sharp boundaries and has a diameter greater than 100 times ...
Fringy flowers are hard to dunk. (Botany).(fringe may protect certain flowers)(Brief Article)
Mar 16, 2002 ... What good is fringe to a flower? People have traditionally considered fringe as merely part of the display for pollinators, says Joseph E. Armstrong of Illinois State University in Normal. It does enhance that the flower's visual appeal, but Armstrong is convinced that fringe has another ...
Alzheimer's disease vaccine abandoned. (Biomedicine).(Elan Corp. ceases testing after some subjects develop brain inflammation)(Brief Article)
Mar 16, 2002 ... The bad news continues for the novel strategy of immunizing people against Alzheimer's disease. Elan Corp. of Dublin now acknowledges that 15 people developed potentially dangerous brain inflammation after receiving vaccinations designed to clear their brains of the protein deposits ...
Cultivating Delight: a Natural History of My Garden. (Books: a selection of new and notable books of scientific interest).
Mar 16, 2002 ... DIANE ACKERMAN The author of A Natural History of the Senses waxes poetic about the life cycles of her upstate New York garden. Hardly a how-to book on growing plants, Cultivating Delight is more of a primer on how to appreciate the plants that you sow and the creatures that ...
Evolution: the Triumph of an Idea. (Books: a selection of new and notable books of scientific interest).
Mar 16, 2002 ... CARL ZIMMER This sweeping text tracks the far-reaching effects of a single idea--Charles Darwin's notion of evolution--on our modern, everyday lives. Zimmer offers both a clear historical perspective on the 160-year legacy of Darwin's idea and a 4-billion-year retrospective of ...
How Do You Spell Haagen-Dazs? The How to Say It Spelling Dictionary of Brands, Companies, Places, and Products. (Books: a selection of new and notable books of scientific interest).
Mar 16, 2002 ... CARL HAUSMAN AND SHERRY HAUSMAN This dictionary covers territory avoided by Webster's and Scrabble dictionaries alike: It lists the correct spellings of thousands of brand names, corporations, drugs, associations, universities, media outlets, sports ...
Mathematical Treks: from Surreal Numbers to Magic Circles. (Books: a selection of new and notable books of scientific interest).
Mar 16, 2002 ... IVARS PETERSON In February 1996, Peterson began writing about what he proclaimed as "cool stuff" for a new online column about mathematics. That column continues today as "Ivars Peterson's Math Trek" on the Science News Web site (http://www.sciencenews.org), which Peterson ...