Science News back issues from December 2002:
Script delivery: New World writing takes disputed turn.(controversy over artifacts from Olmec civilization)
Dec 07, 2002; ... Archaeologists have applauded recent excavations at an ancient settlement in southeastern Mexico that have yielded an array of artifacts from the Olmec civilization. However, controversy has flared with the claim that a few of these artifacts display remnants of the first written language ...
Jarring result: extreme biking can hurt men's fertility.
Dec 07, 2002; ... Men who maintain grueling mountain-bicycling programs are apt to have lower sperm counts and more abnormalities of the scrotum than nonbikers are, a new study finds. Using various measures, scientists in Austria compared the health of 40 male mountain bikers with that of $5 ...
Frogs play tree: male tunes his call to specific tree hole.
Dec 07, 2002; ... Borneo's tree-hole frog may come as close to playing a musical instrument as any wild animal does, according to new tests. Plenty of animals make structured sounds, but this inch-long rain forest frog adjusts its vocal performance to create a specific quality--resonance--from an ...
Cluster bombs: metabolic syndrome tied to heart disease deaths.
Dec 07, 2002; ... Men with a certain cluster of metabolic characteristics are about three times as likely to die of heart disease as men without the traits are, according to a new study. The cluster, called the metabolic syndrome or syndrome X, is made up of generally mild risk factors that often ...
Nanotube ID: new signatures aid nanotech progress.
Dec 07, 2002; ... Carbon nanotubes have been on researchers' A list of promising materials for a decade. However, these tiny tubes--each essentially a rolled-up sheet of graphite about a nanometer wide--are a diverse lot. That's made it tough for scientists to know what kinds of tubes they have in hand, and ...
Hubble weighs in: pinning down an extrasolar planet's mass.(Hubble Space Telescope)
Dec 07, 2002; ... Using a decades-old technique, astronomers have precisely measured the mass of a planet outside our solar system. The measurement reveals that the unseen planet, which orbits a star just 15 light-years from Earth, weighs between 1.9 and 2.4 times the mass of Jupiter. Previous estimates ...
Deadly bubble bath: ultrasound fizz kills microbes under pressure.
Dec 07, 2002; ... Bubbles can be microbe killers. Scientists have long known that ultrasound in liquids causes gas bubbles to form and then often collapse violently. When those bubbles implode in cleaning solutions, they break up dirt and destroy some microbes. Doctors have eyed high-frequency sound as a ...
Solving hazy mysteries: new research plumbs the chemical evolution and climatic effect of aerosols.
Dec 07, 2002; ... The picturesque hazes of Tennessee's Smoky Mountains appear when volatile organic chemicals released by trees react with other gases in the atmosphere. And every time a raindrop falls into the ocean, microscopic droplets of salt water splatter upward into the atmosphere. Both mountain haze ...
Ocean view: scientists are going 24-7 in their studies of the deep.
Dec 07, 2002; ... The last weather ship in the world lies anchored in a severe and lonely place in the Norwegian Sea. Since 1948, its crews have taken water temperatures to produce the longest continuous set of deep-ocean data available. After about 4 decades, those data revealed a dramatic, persistent rise ...
Deep biosphere: a hidden, watery world exists beneath the oceans' floors.
Dec 07, 2002; ... Beyond the limits of most of the latest ocean observatories lies yet another frontier: a watery realm below the seafloor. Earlier this year, researchers made the first expedition to study life in this deep biosphere. They found microbes in cores drilled 420 meters into the seafloor off ...
Protein may signal heart problems. (Biomedicine).(C-reactive protein)(Brief Article)
Dec 07, 2002 ... A protein already linked to inflammation is also a strong predictor of heart problems, a new study suggests. Researchers tracked the health of 27,939 outwardly healthy women over an average of 8 years. The 20 percent of women in the group with the highest concentrations of the ...
Seeing Saturn. (Astronomy).(Cassini mission transmits images of Saturn)(Brief Article)
Dec 07, 2002 ... After 5 years of interplanetary travel, the Saturn-bound Cassini mission has obtained its first image of the ringed planet. Released Nov. 1, the image was taken when Cassini was 285 million kilometers from Saturn--nearly twice the distance between Earth and the sun. The image shows the ...
A hot new therapy? (Heart Failure).(research indicates sauna use improves heart-failure symptoms)(Brief Article)
Dec 07, 2002 ... Spending time in a sauna improves heart function in people with chronic heart failure, report researchers from Japan. For 2 weeks, 20 people spent 15 minutes a day, 5 days a week, in a 60[degrees]C sauna and then 30 minutes lying on a bed wrapped in blankets to maintain an increased body ...
Cycling and surgery have similar effect. (Exercise).(effects on clogged arteries)(Brief Article)
Dec 07, 2002 ... Among people with chest pain because of clogged heart arteries, regular exercise on a stationary bike reduced symptoms better than surgery did, a team of German physicians has found in a small study. After a year, just 6 of the 51 of the patients in the study who exercised had ...
Robotic heart surgery. (Technology).(Brief Article)
Dec 07, 2002 ... Surgeons in New York have used an experimental robotic system to operate on the hearts of 17 patients. The million-dollar device has three arms that hold tiny surgical instruments, as well as cameras to give the surgeons a three-dimensional view of an area of heart tissue. The technique ...
Keeping the beat. (Stem Cells).(research on replacing pacemakers with stem cells)(Brief Article)
Dec 07, 2002 ... Pacemakers have done wonders for heart patients, but some doctors envision replacing these gadgets with cells that can keep hearts beating. Toward that end, researchers have reported that muscle cells taken from embryonic rats and put into an adult rat's heart can transmit the electric ...
Dino Mania: Discovering Who's Who in the Jurassic Zoo.(Book Review)
Dec 07, 2002 ... The activities and quizzes in this book help children put dinosaurs in perspective, from their physical appearance to what Earth was like when these creatures were on it. Kids learn how paleontologists make discoveries about dinosaurs from fossils. For instance, readers can make a model of ...
Einstein and Religion.(Book Review)
Dec 07, 2002 ... "The Good Lord is subtle, but he is not malicious," runs one of Einstein's oft-cited apothegms. Einstein's attitude toward religion is likewise subtle. Born into a nonobservant Jewish family, he had little time for conventional religion but regarded the physical universe with a wonder and ...
The End of Stress As We Know It.(Book Review)
Dec 07, 2002 ... Fundamentally, stress is a good thing. It's a natural defense mechanism that allows us to respond swiftly to perilous situations in a mentally keen state. In fact, McEwen reports, chemicals released during stressful situations protect the body. However, people who are overworked, out of ...
An Encyclopedia of Shade Perennials.(Book Review)
Dec 07, 2002 ... With information on more than 7,000 species and cultivars in 184 genera, this proves to be the definitive guide to plants that thrive in the challenging shade environment. Color photographs display 500 plants, and entries tell how much sun or shade each plant needs, as well as ...
If the Universe is Teeming with Aliens ... Where is Everybody?: Fifty Solutions to the Fermi Paradox and the Problem of Extraterrestrial Life.(Book Review)
Dec 07, 2002 ... Enrico Fermi posed the title question to three colleagues--Edward Teller, Herbert York, and Emil Konopinski--over lunch one summer day in 1950. Since then, many scientists and science fiction writers have puzzled over this query. Webb divides people's beliefs into three groups--that aliens ...
The Restless Universe: Understanding X-ray Astronomy in the Age of Chandra and Newton.(Book Review)
Dec 07, 2002 ... While the Hubble Space Telescope peers deep into the universe and brings us closer to dimly visible objects, the satellites Chandra and Newton are observing radiation that we cannot see--the X rays that carry information about space objects. X rays bombard Earth, but our planet's ...
Volatile gas. (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)
Dec 07, 2002 ... Are we breaking the laws of thermodynamics? I often wonder, in discussions of hydrogen as fuel ("Hydrogen: The Next Generation," SN: 10/12/02, p. 235), how one can provide energy to split water to get hydrogen and oxygen, then react them together as fuel, and expect ever to get a net gain ...
Shark fate. (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)
Dec 07, 2002; ... The Japanese have developed an "artificial shark-fin machine" that produces a product quite similar in texture to the real thing ("Clipping the Fin Trade," SN: ...
Just plane curious. (Letters).(significance of the planets sharing same plane)(Brief Article)
Dec 07, 2002; ... I'm curious. What's the significance of the planets sharing the same plane ("Hefty Discovery: Finding a Kuiper belt king," SN: 10/12/02, p. 228)? Isn't that a coincidence? ROBERT T. DRURY, LOS ANGELES, CALIF. ...
Elusive neutrinos morph on Earth, as in space. (Identity Check).(properties of neutrinos)
Dec 14, 2002; ... For nearly half a century, physicists have scanned nuclear reactors' radiation for evidence that the wispy fundamental particles of antimatter known as antineutrinos undergo bizarre identity transformations. Now, an international team working at an antineutrino detector in Japan reports ...
Chronic-leukemia drug clears a big hurdle. (First-Line Treatment).(effectiveness of imatinib in patients with chronic myeloid leukemia)
Dec 14, 2002; ... The cancer drug imatinib created a stir a few years ago when it rescued leukemia patients who had failed to improve on other treatments. Now, in the first large-scale test of the drug in people newly diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML), imatinib has stopped or reversed the ...
Weathering a new notion. (Martian History).(geology and climate of Mars)
Dec 14, 2002; ... A frigid desert transformed, now and again, into hell. That's the view of ancient Mars just proposed by a team of planetary scientists, who suspect that intermittent impacts by huge asteroids and comets some 3.5 billion years ago profoundly influenced the planet's personality. ...
Office bustle launches anthrax spores. (Dust Up).
Dec 14, 2002; ... The commotion of everyday business can give anthrax spores a second wind, a new study suggests. Normal office activity stirs up the dangerous particles parked on contaminated indoor surfaces and sends them into the air. After letters packed with the bacterium Bacillus anthracis ...
A bit of future-think lets jays cooperate. (Trust That Bird?).(blue jay behavior )
Dec 14, 2002; ... A blue jay will cooperate with a buddy for mutual gain in food despite opportunities to betray the partnership, according to a new laboratory study. Such cooperation among animals had remained elusive and controversial during decades of scientific studies, explains David W. ...
Drug disables mouse sperm but wears off quickly. (Male Pill on the Horizon).(N-butyldeoxynojirimycin drug may be potential form of birth control for men)
Dec 14, 2002; ... A practical birth control pill for men has long been on medicine's wish list. Now, researchers have discovered that a new oral drug created to ease a genetic disorder could have contraceptive benefits. To date, the only government-approved male birth control methods are condom ...
Motion illusion yields a neural surprise. (Brain's Moving Experience).(primary motor cortex)
Dec 14, 2002; ... The primary motor cortex has a well-earned reputation as the brain's action center. This strip of tissue initiates limb movements ranging from walking up steps to wielding dining utensils. However, the primary motor cortex also harbors an introspective side, according to a new ...
Milky Way's last major merger: new clues about galaxy formation thicken the plot.
Dec 14, 2002; ... Orbiting above and below the bulged center of the Milky Way is an elongated, wispy contingent of stars. It could be considered a mere footnote amidst the galaxy's stellar hordes, but astronomers are reading it as if it were an entire chapter early in the galaxy's autobiography. That's a ...
In silico medicine: computer simulations aid drug development and medical care.
Dec 14, 2002; ... Like millions of people in the United States, Bill and Allen have asthma. They're lucky enough to take the newest therapies, sometimes even before the drugs come to market. Yet neither Bill nor Allen has ever been to a doctor's office or the hospital. After all, it's okay if they get sick ...
Icicle waves go with the flow. (Physics).(Brief Article)
Dec 14, 2002; ... Many icicles develop wavy surfaces that look as wrinkled as pushed-up shirtsleeves. That's strange, but what really has captured some scientists' attention is that the distance between surface bulges always averages around I centimeter, no matter how thick the icicle is. A ...
Sizing up small stars. (Astronomy).(size of Proxima Centauri star measured)(Brief Article)
Dec 14, 2002; ... Combining the light from two of the world's largest visible-light telescopes, astronomers have measured, for the first time with high accuracy, the size of a small star. The diminutive body, Proxima Centauri, lies just 4.2 light-years from Earth and is the known star nearest to our solar ...
Bilirubin: both villain and hero? (Biomedicine).(molecule that converts bilverdin into bilirubin leads to questions about function of bilirubin in protecting cells from free radicals)(Brief Article)
Dec 14, 2002; ... Bilirubin, the bile pigment that yellows the skin of babies born with jaundice, is generally considered a toxic molecule. According to a new study, however, bilirubin may actually protect cells from dangerous oxygen-containing molecules called free radicals. Bilirubin forms ...
Zapping bone brings relief from tumor pain. (Cancer).(use of radio waves)(Brief Article)
Dec 14, 2002; ... By unleashing radio waves inside bone, researchers have stopped intractable pain in people with cancer that has spread to their skeletons. Tumors that form inside bone when cancers spread can be especially painful. The new technique, called radio-frequency ablation, unleashes ...
Imaging Parkinson's. (Neuroscience).(brain imaging provides diagnosis of Parkinson's disease)(Brief Article)
Dec 14, 2002; ... Scientists in Ireland report that a new brain-imaging technique can supply proof of Parkinson's disease in people whose symptoms fall short of the standard definition of the disease. The researchers recruited volunteers with only minor muscle tremors, says study coauthor David ...
Bone scan reveals estrogen effects. (Endocrinology).(Brief Article)
Dec 14, 2002; ... There's little debate among scientists that the female hormone estrogen is integral to maintaining strong bones. Osteoporosis, in which the bones become brittle, most commonly strikes women after menopause cuts their natural estrogen supply. Using a scanning technology called ...
Visionary science for the intestine. (Radiology).(capsule endoscopy procedure)
Dec 14, 2002; ... Compared with other parts of the digestive tract, the small intestine is difficult for doctors to access. While a camera-tipped tube slipped down the throat can get images of the stomach and a tube inserted at the other end of the tract reveals the large intestine, no such device reaches ...
The Evolution Explosion: How Humans Cause Rapid Evolutionary Change.(Book Review)
Dec 14, 2002 ... STEPHEN R. PALUMBI The author describes a crisis that he contends can no longer be ignored. This crisis is evolution as intensified by ecological change wrought by human activity. Three elements are necessary for evolution of organisms to occur, variation between individuals, ...
From Conception to Birth: A Life Unfolds.(Book Review)
Dec 14, 2002 ... ALEXANDER TSIARAS By manipulating computer software and lighting to change computerized tomography scans and magnetic resonance images, Tsiaras has depicted organs and cells in human embryos the size of a peanut. He uses digital techniques to rotate each image and add shading ...
Memoirs: A Twentieth-Century Journey in Science and Politics.(Book Review)
Dec 14, 2002 ... EDWARDS TELLER WITH JUDITH SHOOLEY Few scientists, as personalities, stir people's emotions. Teller does, however. People either love him or hate him. This autobiography will probably solidify many people's preconceptions, as he reiterates and elaborates on his positions ...
Really Useful: The Origins of Everyday Things.(Book Review)
Dec 14, 2002 ... JOEL LEVY In the morning, you get up, take a hot shower, drink a cup of coffee, make a couple slices of toast, and put the dishes in the dishwasher, yet you probably never consider what objects make those activities possible. Levy challenges you to stop and smell the coffee as ...
Simply Einstein: Relativity Demystified.(Book Review)
Dec 14, 2002 ... RICHARD WOLFSON A teacher of physics to nonscientists, Wolfson lays out the seminal ideas that define the field. Topics include consideration of the possibility of time travel and the predicted fate of the universe. These ideas stem from Albert Einstein's general theory of ...
Get cooking. (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)
Dec 14, 2002; ... The scientists in "Solar Surgery: Sunlight acts like laser" (SN: 10/5/02, p. 212) may want to adapt their solar concentrator for a more prosaic use: cooking. In the early 1970s, I was involved in a project to build a self-sufficient dwelling that drew solely on the wind and sun for its ...
Mummy dearest. (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)
Dec 14, 2002; ... The picture of the mummified dinosaur was amazing and a bit spooky ("Dear Mummy: Rare fossil reveals common ...
Consciousness thoughts. (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)
Dec 14, 2002 ... The most profound consequence of the research in "Spreading Consciousness" (SN: 10/19/02, p. 251) is that there is no such thing as "now." Since consciousness is spread out across the brain, and since those centers of brain activity cannot communicate faster than the speed of light, "now" ...
Splashdown. (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)
Dec 14, 2002; ... In "Sea Squirt's DNA makes a splash" (SN: 10/19/02, p. 254), you report that "the sea squirt has the beginnings of a spinal cord, making it a so-called chordate." That's the same mistake I fight against each time I teach my zoology class. What makes a sea squirt a chordate is the notochord ...
Skull may complicate human-origins debate. (Chinese Roots).(discrepancy in date given to fossil skull found in Liujiang County, China)
Dec 21, 2002; ... In 1958, farm workers digging in a cave in southern Chinas Liujiang County discovered several human bones including a skull. Relying on its resemblance to securely dated human fossils in Japan, scientists assigned this Homo sapiens skull an age of 20,000 to 30,000 years. ...
Microbes turn up deep in Antarctic lake ice. (Life at the Frigid Edge).(Lake Vida, Antarctica)
Dec 21, 2002; ... A pocket of cold, concentrated saltwater at the bottom of Antarctica's Lake Vida has been sealed off from the world for at least 2,800 years. Yet it could still harbor life, say researchers who found microbes in the ice fight above the briny layer. Peter T. Doran of the ...
Raiding swarms with few rules avoid gridlock. (Ant Traffic Flow).(ant behavior)
Dec 21, 2002; ... A novel analysis shows how individual ants' behavior keeps the traffic flowing as 200,000 virtually blind army ants use a single trail to swarm out to a raid and return home with the booty. The South American army ant Eciton burchelli avoids epic gridlock by forming traffic ...
Scientists design nanoparticle films. (Gold Deposits).
Dec 21, 2002; ... In a step toward a cheaper, easier way to connect computer chips to computers, scientists have patterned semiconductors with a film of extremely small gold particles. The nanoscale detailing might also lead to other applications: new sensors for detecting chemical weapons, novel chemical ...
Imaging of nerve cell branches stirs debate. (Showing Some Spine).
Dec 21, 2002; ... Two research groups have taken unprecedented, high-resolution images of nerve cells inside the brains of live mice--and come to seemingly contradictory views. Resolving their conflict about the stability of cell projections called dendritic spines could illuminate how the adult brain ...
Despite cleaner cruises, diarrhea outbreaks persist. (Sea Sickness).
Dec 21, 2002; ... Cruise ships are cleaner than they used to be, but their standard sanitation practices don't reliably wipe out the viruses behind a recent wave of diarrheal outbreaks, according to new reports from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta. Halting viral epidemics on ...
Findings from the cosmic microwave background. (News of the Early Universe).
Dec 21, 2002; ... The most detailed snapshots so far of the infant universe are confirming that the cosmos consists mostly of mystery material, called dark energy, that accelerates the universe's expansion. The new evidence comes from the Arcminute Cosmology Bolometer Array Receiver (ACBAR), a ...
Drama in numbers: putting a passion for mathematics on stage.
Dec 21, 2002; ... As the curtain rises, an illuminated mathematical expression dominates the scene. "Do you see that theorem?" the narrator asks. "In 1637, Pierre de Fermat ... wrote it down in the margin of a book. Then he added this tantalizing note." A spotlight suddenly reveals a bearded, bewigged, ...
Getting warped: a new exhibit on Albert Einstein dissects his slippery science.(American Museum of Natural History, New York, New York)
Dec 21, 2002; ... Science exhibits don't often come with a warning sign. But there's one at the entrance to a sprawling, new exhibit on Albert Einstein's life and science at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. The sign has no words. It's a video screen whose center is dominated by a ...
Cold comfort: a futuristic play of cryogenic proportions.(Play)
Dec 21, 2002; ... ACT ONE, "DIE ANOTHER DAY" Overhead lights cast a sterile glow over a conference room dominated by a rectangular, polished wood table. A woman wearing a business suit sits at the head of the table. Three other people slump in chairs. Each wears a white smock that extends to just ...
New fossil weighs in on primate origins. (Paleontology).(Brief Article)
Dec 21, 2002 ... Excavations in Wyoming have yielded the partial skeleton of a 55-million-year-old primate that probably was a close relative of the ancestor of modern monkeys, apes, and people. The creature was built for hanging tightly onto tree not for leaping from tree to tree, as some scientists had ...
Herpes vaccine progresses. (Immunology).(Brief Article)
Dec 21, 2002 ... A vaccine against the herpes-simplex-2 virus, which causes genital herpes, protects some women, provided they haven't had a genital or oral herpes infection before. The vaccine consists of a molecule patterned after a protein that sits on the surface of the herpes-2 virus and a ...
Prying apart antimatter. (Physics).(Brief Article)
Dec 21, 2002 ... Physicists in Switzerland have taken the first peek inside atoms of antimatter. The new experiments, which probed antihydrogen atoms, show no sign that physical laws differ between this exotic matter and ordinary matter. The new observations set the stage for far more precise comparisons ...
Ethiopians reveal high-altitude twist. (Anthropology).(physical adaptations body makes when living at high altitudes)(Brief Article)
Dec 21, 2002 ... There's more than one way for people living at extremely high altitudes to adapt to so-called thin air. Biologically, there must be at least three ways, according to a report in an upcoming Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. A team led by Cynthia M. Beall of Case ...
Fresh crater found on lunar images. (Planetary Science).(Brief Article)
Dec 21, 2002 ... Scientists analyzing images of the moon's surface taken from lunar orbit believe they've identified the crater that formed when a small asteroid slammed into the moon almost 5 decades ago. Early in the evening of Nov. 14, 1953, an amateur astronomer in Oklahoma observed and ...