Science News back issues from July 2007:
Bad news for cats: cat allergen hits all allergic people.(This Week)
Jul 07, 2007; ... For people who have asthma or respiratory problems that are triggered by cats, living with Fluffy is obviously a bad idea. Now, researchers have found evidence suggesting that people who know that they have other allergies may also want to avoid the furry felines. Scientists who ...
Hidden smarts: abstract thought trumps IQ scores in autism.(This Week)(abstract reasoning prevalent in autistic persons than intelligence)(Report)
Jul 07, 2007; ... There's more to the intelligence of autistic people than meets the IQ. Unlike most individuals, children and adults diagnosed as autistic often score much higher on a challenging, nonverbal test of abstract reasoning than they do on a standard IQ test, say psychologist Lanrent Mottron of ...
Enzyme is target in parasite.(BIOCHEMISTRY)(thioredoxin glutathione reductase in Schistosoma mansoni flatworm)(Brief article)
Jul 07, 2007 ... The flatworm that causes the tropical disease schistosomiasis has a newly discovered Achilles' heel that drugmakers might be able to exploit. The target is an enzyme called thioredoxin glutathione reductase (TGR). Biochemist David L. Williams of Illinois State University in ...
Oldest siblings show slight IQ advantage.(BEHAVIOR)(intelligence)(Report)(Brief article)
Jul 07, 2007 ... For more than a century, researchers have argued about whether first-born children tend to surpass their later-born siblings in intelligence. A large study now indicates that eldest sons indeed score slightly higher on IQ tests than boys with older siblings do. This IQ effect ...
Unknown Quantity: A Real and Imaginary History of Algebra.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
Jul 07, 2007 ... UNKNOWN QUANTITY: A Real and Imaginary History of Algebra John Derbyshire For mathematicians, the invention of algebra made it possible to think symbolically. Author Derbyshire, a mathematician, traces the history of algebra and reveals how its early concepts led to later forms ...
Tumor suicide: gene therapy makes cancer cells self-destruct.(This Week)(pancreatic cancer)
Jul 14, 2007; ... More than 37,000 people in the United States will be diagnosed with pancreatic cancer this year, and nearly all of those cases will be untreatable. Now, scientists have developed a gene therapy that kills pancreatic tumors in mice by causing the tumor cells to commit suicide. ...
Sea change: people have affected what penguins eat.(This Week)
Jul 14, 2007; ... The eating habits of Adelie penguins in Antarctica changed significantly about 200 years ago, according to chemical analyses of the birds' eggshells. Scientists attribute the shift in diet to whaling and other hunting in the region. The ratios of carbon and nitrogen isotopes in ...
E-waste hazards: Chinese gear recyclers absorb toxic chemicals.(This Week)(electronic waste, polybrominated diphenyl ethers)
Jul 14, 2007; ... Residents of a Chinese region where 80 percent of families include workers who dismantle and recycle electronic devices have high concentrations of flame-retardant chemicals in their blood, researchers report. Inhabitants of a fishing village not far away also carried elevated amounts of ...
Smoke this: Parkinson's is rarer among tobacco users.(This Week)
Jul 14, 2007; ... Call it a flimsy silver lining to a noxious blue cloud: Long-term smokers have half the risk of Parkinson's disease that nonsmokers do, according to a new report. In 12,000 people studied, those who smoked the most--the equivalent of at least a pack a day for 60 years--had the ...
Shattering find? Comet fragments show surprising uniformity.(This Week)
Jul 14, 2007; ... When comets pass close to the sun, solar radiation can bake and chemically alter their outer layers. Yet new observations of fragments of a comet that broke apart almost in front of astronomers' eyes suggest that its interior was remarkably similar to its exterior. For comets, ...
Forget about it: how the brain suppresses unwanted memories.(This Week)
Jul 14, 2007; ... Not only can people intentionally forget disturbing memories, but they do so thanks to a pair of previously unreported neural processes, a new study finds. Researchers have long argued about the existence of memory suppression and especially the ability to wipe out mental traces ...
Pulling strings: stretching proteins can reveal how they fold.(This Week)
Jul 14, 2007; ... Proteins, long strings of amino acids, spontaneously fold into intricate shapes that enable them to perform a cell's dazzling variety of functions. To better understand the forces that determine these shapes, scientists have developed a technique for stretching a protein to follow in ...
Passages: revealing the nature of exoplanets.(Cover story)
Jul 14, 2007; ... Eleven years ago, David Charbonneau was a new graduate student at Harvard University's astronomy department, eager to explore the birth of the universe. "Then I learned of the incredible first discoveries that had just been announced in exoplanets," he recalls. Those objects, the first ...
Brain attack: progress is slow in finding better ischemic-stroke therapies.
Jul 14, 2007; ... About a year ago, E. Gail Anderson Holness was in church when she suddenly felt lightheaded. At first, the then-49-year-old minister, motivational speaker, and Washington, D.C.-based writer didn't think that the episode was serious, even though she'd had headaches for several days. She was ...
Mouse method turns skin cells to stem cells.(BIOMEDICINE)(reprogramming mouse skin cells)(Brief article)
Jul 14, 2007 ... Scientists have reprogrammed mouse skin cells to mimic embryonic stem cells that can morph into any type of cell in the body. Last year, Shinya Yamanaka and his team at Kyoto University in Japan found that they could insert into skin fibroblast cells active copies of four genes ...
Dust delays Martian rover.(PLANETARY SCIENCE)(Opportunity)(Brief article)
Jul 14, 2007; ... For 9 months, the Mars rover Opportunity has inched along the perimeter of an 800-meter-wide crater called Victoria, while NASA scientists debated where--and whether--the robot should attempt a descent into the 70-m-deep hole. Although the downhill journey is risky, the payoff is great: ...
Gooey solution to a sticky problem.(BIOCHEMISTRY)(qniumucin extracted from jellyfishes)(Brief article)
Jul 14, 2007; ... Researchers in Japan have extracted a new, gooey, and potentially useful protein from the bodies of jellyfish. The sugar-laden molecule, a member of the mucin family, is similar to proteins found in human mucus and other natural lubricants and protective coatings. Booming ...
Hepatitis B drug creates HIV resistance.(BIOMEDICINE)(entecavir)(Brief article)
Jul 14, 2007 ... In people infected with both the hepatitis B virus and the AIDS virus HIV, a widely used treatment for hepatitis also causes HIV to develop drug resistance, scientists report. Chloe Thio of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore and her colleagues studied ...
As the last ice age waned, a great lake was born.(EARTH SCIENCE)(Canada's Lake Agassiz)(Brief article)
Jul 14, 2007; ... During the final millennia of the last ice age, what was briefly the world's largest lake sat along the southwestern edge of the ice sheet that smothered eastern Canada. Researchers have now determined when that lake first formed. At one point, Canada's Lake Agassiz contained ...
More bang for the biofuel buck.(BIOTECHNOLOGY)(use of microorganisms in biofuel production)(Brief article)
Jul 14, 2007; ... Microbes that ferment ethanol from glycerol, a by-product of biodiesel production, could add an economically valuable new ingredient to the biofuel industry, researchers report. Industrial plants that make biodiesel by processing vegetable oils and animal fats churn out about 10 ...
Adding to nature's repertoire.(BIOTECHNOLOGY)(making proteins with synthetic amino acids)(Brief article)
Jul 14, 2007; ... Out of thousands of possible kinds of amino acid, virtually all organisms use just 20 to build the proteins they need. Now, scientists have expanded this palette by coaxing some cells from mice to make proteins that include synthetic amino acids. The researchers have already ...
Anemone reveals complex past.(GENETICS)(Brief article)
Jul 14, 2007; ... Animals evolved complex genomes surprisingly early, new research shows. The recently completed genome of the starlet sea anemone, a primitive animal that last shared an ancestor with humans and other vertebrates about 700 million years ago, has a greater number of genes in a more complex ...
Glut: Mastering Information through the Ages.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
Jul 14, 2007 ... GLUT: Mastering Information through the Ages ALEX WRIGHT As people become increasingly connected through digital means and a flood of information is readily available through the Internet, the idea of information systems has gained greater visibility. In this historical account, ...
Jacquard's Web: How a Hand Loom Led to the Birth of the Information Age.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
Jul 14, 2007 ... JACQUARD'S WEB: How a Hand Loom Led to the Birth of the Information Age. JAMES ESSINGER It seems unlikely that a loom would spark the computer age. But, as Essinger explains, French inventor Joseph-Marie Jacquard did just that with his amazing machine. After presenting a brief ...
Where's My Jetpack? A Guide to the Amazing Science Fiction Future that Never Arrived.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
Jul 14, 2007 ... WHERE'S MY JETPACK? A Guide to the Amazing science Fiction Future that Never Arrived DANIEL H. WILSON Robotic maids, wholly enclosed cities, and jetpacks. These are among the life-altering advances imagined by science fiction visionaries in the early 20th century. But here we ...
Tropical Plants of Costa Rica: A Guide to Native and Exotic Flora.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
Jul 14, 2007 ... TROPICAL PLANTS OF COSTA RICA: A Guide to Native and Exotic Flora WILLOW ZUCHOWSKI Did you know that the coffee plant has a relative with showy, bright-red flowers that's known as hot lips? Or that guava has been used to treat ailments such as diarrhea and dysentery? These two ...
At least a few years to prepare.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
Jul 14, 2007 ... "Northern Exposure: The inhospitable side of the galaxy?" (SN: 4/21/07, p. 244) posits that every 64 million years a mass die-off occurs due to increased cosmic rays. When will the cosmic rays again be at their maximum? ROBERT RICHARDS, METAIRIE, LA. The article ...
Fuel me once?(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
Jul 14, 2007 ... Ethanol is not an alternative to petroleum-based fuel to reduce air pollution ("Not-So-Clear Alternative: In its air-quality effects, ethanol fuel is similar to gasoline," SN: 5/5/07, p. 278). It is a grow-it-at-home alternative to foreign-source petroleum-based fuel. It takes only 2 years ...
AIDS abated; genome scans illuminate immune control of HIV.(This Week)
Jul 21, 2007; ... Some people who contract HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, maintain low amounts of the virus in their bodies for years. These long-term nonprogressors--so called because a decade or more can pass before they develop full-blown AIDS--have attracted great attention from researchers. ...
Birth of an island: megaflood severed Europe from Britain.(This Week)(Great Britain's Northern Paleovalley)
Jul 21, 2007; ... Hundreds of thousands of years ago, as an ice age was ending, the spillover from an immense glacial lake in northern Europe sliced through a broad ridge that for millions of years had connected what is now England to the continent. The flood that resulted, one of the largest that ...
Persistent prions: soilbound agents are more potent.(This Week)
Jul 21, 2007; ... Deformed proteins called prions cause fatal brain-destroying disorders, such as chronic wasting disease in deer and elk and mad cow disease, which can infect people. Evidence suggests that prions make their way into animals' nervous systems through ingestion, but scientists aren't sure. ...
Check on checkers: in perfect game, there's no winner.(This Week)(computer chess program)
Jul 21, 2007; ... Computers can now play a flawless game of checkers. A calculation that began almost 2 decades ago shows that if both players make perfect moves, the game will be a draw every time. The achievement makes checkers the most complicated game to have been solved completely. Computers ...
Den mothers: bears shift dens as ice deteriorates.(This Week)
Jul 21, 2007; ... Pregnant polar bears in northern Alaska are now more likely to dig their birthing dens on land or landbound ice than on the offshore ice they once used, according to 20 years of records. This landward trend probably reflects the decline of the sea-ice habitat these bears have ...
Brain seasoning: a common spice could deter Alzheimer's.(This Week)(research of turmeric)
Jul 21, 2007; ... Past research has suggested that a common spice in Asian and Middle Eastern cuisine may improve mental performance in elderly people. Now, scientists have discovered a mechanism by which this spice, called turmeric, could help the body clear plaque deposits associated with Alzheimer's ...
Chemical conversation: red blood cells send a signal that makes platelets less sticky.(This Week)
Jul 21, 2007; ... Primarily known for their work hauling oxygen to tissues throughout the body, red blood cells may also play a part in regulating activities of another blood component. The cells can release a chemical that signals blood-clotting platelets to become less sticky and therefore less likely to ...
The power of induction: cutting the last cord could resonate with our increasingly gadget-dependent lives.(wireless power system)
Jul 21, 2007; ... Matin Soljacic was understandably nervous. The young physicist was about to give his first public presentation of an idea that sounded almost too good to be true. There was no telling how his audience, at a Berkeley, Calif., symposium, would receive his daring proposal. Design two antennas ...
Mathematical lives of plants: why plants grow in geometrically curious patterns.(Cover story)
Jul 21, 2007; ... The seeds of a sunflower, the spines of a cactus, and the bracts of a pinecone all form whirling spiral patterns. Remarkable for their regularity and beauty, these natural structures also show some surprising mathematical properties. In more than 90 percent of the spiral ...
Brain stem cells help Parkinson's monkeys.(NEUROSCIENCE)(Brief article)
Jul 21, 2007 ... Monkeys with a Parkinson's disease-like disorder showed signs of improvement after receiving transplants of human-brain stem cells. The treated monkeys began to walk and eat again, while their untreated companions continued to degenerate. In Parkinson's, neurons that produce the ...
Alcohol problems hit nearly 1 in 3 adults.(BEHAVIOR)(Brief article)
Jul 21, 2007 ... A new, large-scale survey of U.S. adults finds that about 30 percent report having engaged in harmful patterns of alcohol consumption. Nearly 18 percent cite past or current alcohol abuse, which includes repeatedly missing work because of inebriation and driving while drunk. Another 12.5 ...
Hyperion's hydrocarbons.(PLANETARY SCIENCE)(Saturn's moon)(Brief article)
Jul 21, 2007 ... Astronomers have confirmed the existence of frozen water on the surface of Saturn's moon Hyperion and have also discovered solid carbon dioxide there. The evidence comes from spectra taken by the Cassini spacecraft during the first flyby of the moon, in September 2005. The craft's ...
Double-decker solar cell.(ENERGY)(Brief article)
Jul 21, 2007 ... Researchers have created a two-layer solar cell that's the most efficient yet among cells made of organic materials. It's essentially a two-solar cell sandwich with a transparent film in the middle. The top layer picks up the higher-energy photons from the blue part of the spectrum. Most ...
Crystal matchmaker.(MATERIALS SCIENCE)(quasicrystals)(Brief article)
Jul 21, 2007 ... Having evolved from mathematical playthings to curiosities of physics, the structures known as quasicrystals could become great tools for the electronics industry. Like crystals, quasicrystals are built from units of atoms arranged in an orderly fashion. But, unlike crystals, ...
fryPod: lightning strikes iPod users.(TECHNOLOGY)(Brief article)
Jul 21, 2007 ... A jogger wearing one of the popular iPod music players suffered second-degree ear and neck burns, burst eardrums, and jaw fractures after lightning struck a nearby tree. Doctors say that the wires leading to the iPod's earbuds channeled electricity up the man's torso and into ...
Quantum leak?(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
Jul 21, 2007; ... Perhaps there need not be "degrees of quantumness" ("Degrees of Quantumness: Shades of gray in particle-wave duality," SN: 5/12/07, p. 292). As the beams pass increasingly closer to the surface, the plate will induce a small (but increasingly larger) spread of energies (hence wavelengths) ...
Good bugs, bad bugs.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
Jul 21, 2007; ... Kudos for "Our Microbes, Ourselves" (SN: 5/19/07, p. 314). I think this holistic view of the microbe community--rather than investigating the single organism--offers a hopeful path to numerous insights for preventive measures for optimum health. TERRY MOORE, CORVALLIS, ORE. ...
Tea to a fit.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
Jul 21, 2007; ... The fact that various teas contain beneficial antioxidants is well-known ("Slimming on oolong," SN: 5/19/07, p. 318). Many claim to be slimming. Is it only oolong that inhibits fat absorption, and, if so, why? JAMES C. MATTHEWS, CORAL SPRINGS, FLA. Lauren Budd ...
Ingenium: Five Machines That Changed the World.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
Jul 21, 2007 ... INGENIUM: Five Machines That Changed the World MARK DENNY The automobile, the computer, and countless other technological advances have obviously changed the way we live. In a book that blends history and physics, Denny introduces five lesser-known machines that also changed our ...
Neptune's Ark: From Ichthyosaurs to Orcas.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
Jul 21, 2007 ... NEPTUNE'S ARK: From Ichthyosaurs to Orcas DAVID RAINS WALLACE Hidden beneath the tranquil waters off the Pacific coast of the United States is a dynamic, diverse assortment of sea creatures. Wallace profiles the ancient and modern aquatic life of the Pacific using a combination ...
The Telescope: Its History, Technology, and Future.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
Jul 21, 2007 ... THE TELESCOPE: Its History, Technology, and Future GEOFF ANDERSEN The first documented patent for a telescope was awarded to spectacle maker Hans Lippershey. Galileo simply perfected the design. His true claim to fame stems from the fact that he used the telescope to make the ...
Crocodile: Evolution's Greatest Survivor.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
Jul 21, 2007 ... CROCODILE: Evolution's Greatest Survivor LYNNE KELLY A living relic of the past, the crocodile is at once attractive and terrifying. Kelly, a science teacher and writer, takes a close look at these fierce predators, which often appear in the legends of people living near the ...
The World of the Vikings.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
Jul 21, 2007 ... THE WORLD OF THE VIKINGS RICHARD HALL The Vikings, author Hall reveals, were much more than the plunderous adventurers of popular legend. In this comprehensive guide, he traces the viking people from their origins in Scandinavia around the first millennium A.D. to their last ...
Weighting for friends: obesity spreads in social networks.(This week)
Jul 28, 2007; ... Although a variety of personal traits influence weight gain, obesity is socially contagious, moving from person to person through networks of friends and relatives, a new investigation finds. The study, the first to examine how social ties influence the development of obesity ...
Good light: sun early in life could protect against MS.(This week)
Jul 28, 2007; ... A half-century ago, doctors from Europe and North America who spent time in central Africa were struck by the absence of multiple sclerosis there. Indeed, the farther from the equator people lived, the more prevalent multiple sclerosis (MS) seemed to become. Scandinavians faced a higher ...
Stunting growth: ozone will trim plants' carbon-storing power.(This Week)
Jul 28, 2007; ... Increases in low-altitude ozone predicted for the upcoming century will stifle the growth of vegetation in maw regions, causing planet-warming carbon dioxide to build up in Earth's atmosphere more quickly than had been expected, a new model suggests. Low-altitude ozone--as ...
Sop story: new porous gel soaks up heavy metal.(This Week)
Jul 28, 2007; ... A team of chemists has created a new porous material that's extremely effective at sopping up mercury. Called a chalcogenide aerogel or simply a chaleogel, the material could be used as a filter for cleaning contaminated drinking water. The material's versatility also makes it a good ...
Grim reap purr: nursing home feline senses the end.(This Week)
Jul 28, 2007; ... Stephen King, take note. A cat in Rhode Island knows when death is nigh. Two years ago, the staff of Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Providence adopted a gray-and-white kitten. They named him Oscar and moved him to the third floor of the dementia unit, where he ...
Sweet gatekeeper: receptor depends on sugar and water.(This Week)(acetylcholine receptors)
Jul 28, 2007; ... Acetylcholine receptors, structures on the membranes of nerve and muscle cells, act as gateways for the passage of chemical signals. The first high-resolution image of the functional part of these receptors hints at the significance of two common molecules--water and sugar--in its ...
Heavenly chemistry: astronomers announce astrophysical anion.(This Week)
Jul 28, 2007; ... The discovery of a negatively charged organic molecule in space may provide new insight into the formation of amino acids, sugars, and other prebiologic compounds in interstellar gas clouds, the regions that spawn stars and planets. The compound, known as octatetraynyl, is one ...
Slick serpent.(This Week)(Brief article)
Jul 28, 2007; ... Oil plunging into a pan filled with the same fluid drags along a thin sheet of air, which keeps the streaming fluid from immediately merging with the bath, says Matthew Thrasher of the University of Texas at Austin. By rotating the pan, Thrasher and his colleagues got the falling oil to ...
Not-so-elementary bee mystery: detectives sift clues in the case of the missing insects.(U.S. honeybees )
Jul 28, 2007; ... The disappearance of large numbers of U.S. honeybees is so odd that it's attracted Ian Lipkin. Since last fall, beekeepers in at least 35 states have reported colonies that shrank rapidly for no apparent reason. Adult bees just go missing, leaving behind young bees in need of tending. This ...
Virtual surgery: doctors can simulate heart operations with the click of a mouse.
Jul 28, 2007; ... Board an airplane and you can rest assured that it underwent rigorous safety testing before its first flight and, in fact, before it was even built. You can feel confident that engineering software searched across a vast range of design parameters to find the most aerodynamic shape, the ...
Antidepressants trim suicide tries.(BEHAVIOR)(Brief article)
Jul 28, 2007 ... Two extensive new investigations indicate that depressed people who take antidepressant drugs generally become less likely to attempt suicide. Gregory E. Simon and James Savarino of Group Health Cooperative, a health maintenance organization in Seattle, analyzed medical and ...
Old viruses have new tricks.(MICROBIOLOGY)(Brief article)
Jul 28, 2007 ... Only a few years ago, biologists stumbled upon the fact that cells use RNA snippets called microRNAs as tools to control the activity of genes. Now it appears that some viruses also carry codes for microRNAs that can control the genes of invaded cells. Once inside a host cell, a ...
Erosion accelerates along Alaskan coast.(EARTH SCIENCE)(Brief article)
Jul 28, 2007 ... Rates of erosion along Alaska's northern coast have more than doubled in recent decades, overhead views suggest. Mud-rich permafrost cliffs standing 3 to 4 meters tall constitute much of the shore that runs from Barrow, Alaska, to the Canadian border. In some spots, the coast ...
Saturn's retinue: 60 and counting.(PLANETARY SCIENCE)(Brief article)
Jul 28, 2007 ... Astronomers have discovered yet another satellite of Saturn, bringing to 60 the number of moons around the ringed planet. The Cassini spacecraft spied the roughly 2-kilometer-wide body in images taken May 30. Residing 197,700 km from Saturn, the moon orbits between Methone and ...