Science News back issues from December 2008:
Quantum codes conceal secrets of the cosmos.(FROM THE EDITOR)
Dec 06, 2008; ... It seems like an innocent enough title for a scientific paper: "Closed timelike curves enable perfect state distinguish-ability." But perhaps the intent was clandestine. By a careful choice of words, the authors may have been sending an encrypted message. "Closed timelike ...
Scientific observations.(SCIENCE NOTEBOOK)(Brief article)
Dec 06, 2008 ... "Tests have shown that, when a baby is lowered face down into warm water with a parental hand under his tummy, he shows no sign of panic but holds his breath automatically and floats happily in the water with his eyes fully open, gazing at the underwater scene. If, very gently, the ...
Science past: December 6, 1958.(SCIENCE NOTEBOOK)(Brief article)
Dec 06, 2008 ... FIND CELL "POWER PLANTS"--Fragments of mitochondria, microscopic "islands" in the cell protoplasm surrounding the nucleus, are helping scientists find out how a cell gets its energy to carry on vital life processes. All energy comes from combustion of foodstuffs, but exactly how the living ...
Science future.(SCIENCE NOTEBOOK)(Brief article)(Calendar)
Dec 06, 2008 ... January 3, 2009 The Year of Science kicks off with a launch event in Boston. Visit www.yearofscience2009.org January 28, 2009 The STFC holds a workshop in London on commercial ...
For daily use.(SCIENCE NOTEBOOK)(Brief article)
Dec 06, 2008 ... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Turning down the thermostat on hot-water heaters may be good for the environment the electricity bill, but it may not be good for your health. The 140[degrees] Fahrenheit standard kills potentially lethal waterborne organisms, including the ones ...
Science stats: worldwide water: supply and demand.(SCIENCE NOTEBOOK)(Brief article)(Statistical data)
Dec 06, 2008 ... <Pre> Science Stats | WORLDWIDE WATER: SUPPLY AND DEMAND Water Resources EUROPE 6% NORTH AMERICA 15% ASIA PACIFIC18% SOUTH ASIA 4% EAST ASIA7% AFRICA 9% MIDDLE EAST 11% SOUTH AMERICA 30% Water Use EUROPE ...
Genes & cells.(SN Online: www.sciencenews.org)(Brief article)
Dec 06, 2008 ... Using preserved hair samples (shown), researchers have sequenced about 70 percent of the woolly mammoth's nuclear genome. The findings provide clues to when ...
Atom & cosmos.(SN Online: www.sciencenews.org)(Brief article)
Dec 06, 2008 ... NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander has tasted its last morsel of the Red Planet's soil and viewed its last Martian landscape. With shorter days and an ...
Exoplanets make pictorial debut: first images of a planetary trio circling a star are released.(STORY ONE)(Cover story)
Dec 06, 2008; ... Canadian astronomer Christian Marois was already carrying a tightly held secret when he boarded an airplane in July to Hawaii's Manna Kea, the mountaintop home of both the Gemini North and Keck observatories. Images his team had taken with Gemini North nine months earlier had revealed a ...
Food advice could be peanuts: early exposure seems to lessen the risk of nut allergy.(Body & Brain)
Dec 06, 2008; ... Consuming peanuts in infancy appears to lessen, not increase, a child's risk of developing a peanut allergy later, British researchers report in the November Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. The findings clash with some pediatric recommendations of the past ...
Opt for the tube, and do so quickly: heart patients may benefit from prompt catheterization.(Body & Brain)
Dec 06, 2008; ... NEW ORLEANS -- People who arrive at a hospital with chest pain or other mild heart attack symptoms, but ambiguous scores on medical tests, might still warrant emergency treatment, according to new research. The study, reported November 10 at the American Heart Association's ...
Drug may slow viral heart infections: interferon reduced presence of viruses in biopsied tissues.(Body & Brain)
Dec 06, 2008; ... NEW ORLEANS -- A viral infection of the heart can be eliminated or at least slowed by treatment with the drug interferon, a team of European researchers reports. Viral infections show up in some patients with heart failure and may bear some responsibility for some cases, particularly when ...
As life evolves, minerals do too: team recounts dramatic changes in variety, abundance.(Earth)
Dec 06, 2008; ... If you think evolution is something that happens only to plants and animals, think again. Evolution--change through time--happens in the mineral kingdom as well, scientists say. As the solar system has aged, the number of types of minerals it contains has burgeoned from only a dozen or so ...
It's a jungle on there: skin samples contain rich diversity of bacteria: inventory identifies body's most microbe-varied locales.(Genes & Cells)
Dec 06, 2008; ... PHILADELPHIA -- Most people think of rain forests as hot spots for biological diversity, but new research suggests that belly buttons are also rich ecosystems. That's one finding from the first attempt to take a large-scale inventory of microbes on human skin. In recent years ...
Cancer genome sequenced.(Brief article)
Dec 06, 2008; ... For the first time, a complete cancer genome, and incidentally a complete female genome, has been decoded, scientists report online November 5 in Nature. In a study made possible by faster, cheaper and more sensitive ...
Different division.(meiosis between sexes)(Brief article)
Dec 06, 2008; ... PHILADELPHIA -- Women and men sometimes do things differently, right down to divvying up their genetic legacies. This divvying up is known as meiosis, a process that cuts the number of chromosomes in half during the production of eggs and sperm. Men do meiosis by the textbook, but women ...
Household cleaners using oxygen may make blood removal too simple: three common forensic tests foiled by hemoglobin's fatigue.(Molecules)
Dec 06, 2008; ... CSI teams beware -- a common household product cleans up blood thoroughly enough to make it undetectable by three of the most common forensic tests. These "presumptive tests" are a quick-and-dirty way to identify important stains--such as blood--at a crime scene, says Walter ...
Design criteria outline ways to repel water, oil: both liquids can bead up, flow off textured surfaces.(Molecules)(Brief article)
Dec 06, 2008; ... A new set of design criteria could enable engineers to invent and manufacture surfaces that can repel almost all liquids, even oily fluids long noted for their ability to foul water-repellent surfaces. After designing and manufacturing "omniphobic" surfaces that can repel both ...
Stone Age gal had wide hips: H. erectus females may have delivered big-brained babies.(Humans)
Dec 06, 2008; ... She was short, squat and definitely not built for speed. On the plus side, this adult female Homo erectus, who lived in Africa roughly 1 million years ago, had hips wide enough to bear babies with brains nearly as big as those of newborn human infants. That's the evolutionary ...
Ancient healer reborn.(Humans)(Brief article)
Dec 06, 2008; ... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The graves of people who died 12,000 years ago rarely contain a woman's skeleton pinned down in an unusual position by large stones, accompanied by another person's foot (orange) and a menagerie of animal remains, including tortoise shells (green) and ...
Physicists find muons bemusing: puzzling results may signify mystery particle or new force.(Matter & Energy)(Brief article)
Dec 06, 2008; ... Physicists are puzzling over a bunch of measly muons. In experiments at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Ill., researchers have detected too many muons where there should be hardly any. Muons are heavy cousins of electrons. Most physicists believe a mundane ...
A way to crack quantum encryption: time-travel technique could break supposedly secure codes.(Matter & Energy)
Dec 06, 2008; ... Quantum physics offers James Bond and his ilk much more than a bit of solace--it permits quantum encryption, a completely spyproof way to send coded information. Any bad guy eavesdropping on Bond's messages to M could always be detected. But now physicists suggest that quantum ...
In their minds, volunteers swap bodies with woman, mannequin: illusion could help scientists study self-identity, body image.(Neuroscience)
Dec 06, 2008; ... It sounds like a lost episode of The Twilight Zone. A man enters a laboratory, dons a special headset and shakes hands with a woman sitting across from him. In a matter of seconds, he feels like he's inside the woman's skin, reaching out and grasping his own hand. Strange as it ...
Morality askew in psychopaths.(MEETING NOTES)(Brief article)
Dec 06, 2008; ... Psychopaths show neural responses related to moral insensitivity and a keen interest in moral violations, scientists reported. Researchers led by Kent Kiehl of the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque recruited inmates from a New Mexico prison to undergo brain scanning while ...
Parasite twists rats' innate fear.(MEETING NOTES)(Brief article)
Dec 06, 2008; ... In a dangerous game of cat and mouse, the most important player turns out to be a parasite. Researchers know that the parasite Toxoplasma gondii is a puppeteer that can force a rat to go against its instincts and become attracted to the scent of cat urine. Now scientists have discovered ...
Still love-struck after 20 years: some long-married couples are as giddy as teenagers.(Neuroscience)
Dec 06, 2008; ... New research on brain activity confirms that people can be madly in love with each other long after the honeymoon is over. Researchers led by Bianca Acevedo of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York wanted to know if romantic love--or at least the brain activity it ...
Anatomy of a well-aging brain.(MEETING NOTES)(Brief article)
Dec 06, 2008; ... People who are mentally vigorous at age 80 can have more plaques in their brains than their normal-aging counterparts. At the same time, these higher-performing brains may host fewer tangles, which are denser, more harmful protein clumps, researchers reported. Plaques are ...
Melatonin by moonlight.(MEETING NOTES)(Brief article)
Dec 06, 2008; ... Moonlight may interrupt astronauts' sleep cycles by messing with their melatonin, researchers reported. Sleep cycles are regulated by the type and amount of light that people encounter. When a person goes to sleep, the hormone melatonin circulates through the body to maintain a drowsy ...
Sequencing the dead to save the living: reviving ancient genomes of long-extinct creatures offers a window into past extinctions--and may help prevent future die outs.
Dec 06, 2008; ... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Genes tell stories of disease, of health, of parentage, all recorded in the chemical composition of DNA. But to many biologists, one of the most exciting tales that sequences of DNA letters can tell is an evolutionary one. And since evolution on its ...
No gene is an island: even as biologists catalog the discrete parts of life forms, an emerging picture reveals that life's functions arise from interconnectedness.
Dec 06, 2008; ... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The gene p53 has long been singled out as an anticancer hero. It is a critical tumor fighter. A person or lab animal develops a tumor much faster without the gene than with it. But p53 could be dangerous if left to act alone. What ...
Thanks for the support.(FEEDBACK)(Letter to the editor)
Dec 06, 2008; ... As a high school teacher, I have had many students who have heard about the global cooling scare of the 1970s, and these students hold on to those ideas even in the face of overwhelming evidence to suggest that the current warming trend is real. Until I read Sid Perkins' article "Cooling ...
First thing first.(FEEDBACK)(Letter to the editor)
Dec 06, 2008; ... I was intrigued by the ideas discussed in Bruce Bower's "Body in Mind" article (SN.. 10/25/08, p. 24) since I have long felt that there is an overemphasis on algorithms in efforts to create artificial intelligence. I remember arguing with one of Stephen Hawking's students in Cambridge in ...
Waves pass through.(FEEDBACK)(Letter to the editor)
Dec 06, 2008; ... Regarding "Solid evidence about Earth's core" (SN: 9/13/08, p. 14): If Earth has a solid inner core but a liquid outer core, then any direction you look at it, the shear waves have to go through some liquid outer core before they get to the solid inner core. So how do they get through the ...
Colliding planets.(FEEDBACK)(Letter to the editor)
Dec 06, 2008; ... "Impact may have scarred Mars" (SN: 7/19/08,p. 10) interested me. In the article, Francis Nimmo of the University of California, Santa Cruz says that "something big smacked into Mars and stripped half the crust off the planet." I also understand that the current theory of the formation of ...
California's Fading Wildflowers: Lost Legacy and Biological Invasions.(Brief article)(Book review)
Dec 06, 2008; ... California's Fading Wildflowers: Lost Legacy and Biological Invasions Richard A. Minnich [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] "The land was very green and flower-strewn," Pedro Font notes in a 1776 diary entry describing fields near the Los Angeles River where the ...
Insatiable Curiosity: Innovation in a Fragile Future.(Brief article)(Book review)
Dec 06, 2008; ... Insatiable Curiosity: Innovation in a Fragile Future Helga Nowotny Translated by Mitch Cohen [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The only way is forward, so be bold, Nowotny tells those who fear the uncertainty of the future. Vice President of the European ...
Coding and Redundancy: Man-Made and Animal-Evolved Signals.(BOOKSHELF)(Brief article)(Book review)
Dec 06, 2008 ... Coding and Redundancy: Man-Made and Animal-Evolved Signals Jack P. Hailman [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ...
Prescriptions for the Mind: A Critical View of Contemporary Psychiatry.(BOOKSHELF)(Brief article)(Book review)
Dec 06, 2008 ... Prescriptions for the Mind: A Critical View of Contemporary Psychiatry Joel Paris [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ...
The Quantum Ten: A Story of Passion, Tragedy, Ambition and Science.(BOOKSHELF)(Brief article)(Book review)
Dec 06, 2008 ... The Quantum Ten: A Story of Passion, Tragedy, Ambition and Science Sheilla Jones [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ...
Blown to Bits: Your Life, Liberty, and Happiness after the Digital Explosion.(BOOKSHELF)(Brief article)(Book review)
Dec 06, 2008 ... Blown to Bits: Your Life, Liberty, and Happiness after the Digital Explosion Hal Abelson, Ken [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ...
Extreme Birds: The World's Most Extraordinary and Bizarre Birds.(BOOKSHELF)(Brief article)(Book review)
Dec 06, 2008 ... Extreme Birds: The World's Most Extraordinary and Bizarre Birds Dominic Couzens [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ...
The decider: informing the debate over the reality of 'free will' requires learning something about the lateral habenula.(ESSAY)
Dec 06, 2008; ... At the end of The Matrix trilogy, Neo and Agent Smith are engaged in one final, interminable scene of surreal combat, a surrogate competition for an eternal battle between humans and machines. "It's pointless to keep fighting," Agent Smith declares to Neo. "Why do you persist?" ...
Debates over definition of planet continue and inspire.(COMMENT)
Dec 06, 2008; ... Planetary science is in the midst of a revolution. As recently as the early 1990s, "the planets" consisted of just nine famous objects in our solar system that every school kid learned to recognize by name and appearance. But then, advances in astronomical technology unleashed an explosion ...
Successful science should inspire higher standards.(FROM THE EDITOR)
Dec 20, 2008; ... Science seldom works as well as it's supposed to. In principle, science should be the gold standard for acquiring reliable knowledge, using methods that eliminate prejudice and bias by conforming to universal standards of proper inference and verification. In ...
Scientific observations.(SCIENCE NOTEBOOK)(Freeman Dyson quotation)(Quotation)
Dec 20, 2008 ... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] "When the first atom was split in 1932, the newspaper man asked Rutherford why he split atoms and Rutherford said, 'Oh, we're like children, we have to take the watch apart to see how it works.' And I think that is absolutely right. That's how it all ...
Science past: December 20, 1958.(SCIENCE NOTEBOOK)(Brief article)
Dec 20, 2008 ... POISON IVY PILLS -- A poison ivy pill can offer season-long immunity against America's common summer skin rash .... The standard dosage that will develop immunity includes one tablet every other day for the first two weeks. This is then followed by one tablet daily for the next two weeks ....
Science future.(SCIENCE NOTEBOOK)(Calendar)
Dec 20, 2008 ... December 30 Cleveland's Great Lakes Science Center rings in 2009 with exhibits, films and a balloon drop. Visit www.greatscience.com January 12, 2009 Smithsonian Institution's 2009 ...
How bizarre.(SCIENCE NOTEBOOK)(Brief article)
Dec 20, 2008 ... The University of Michigan's John Hart and his colleagues have shrunk Obama to the nanoscale. Using roughly150 million carbon nanotubes, the researchers recreated artist Shepard Fairey's ...
Matter & energy.(SN online: www.sicencenews.org)(magnetic resonance imaging)(Brief article)
Dec 20, 2008 ... MRI works by flipping the magnetic spin axes of atoms back and forth. Faster flipping is possible, which would make for clearer, speedier ...
Body & brain.(SN online: www.sicencenews.org)(Brief article)
Dec 20, 2008 ... That gut feeling--it creeps into your bones. A new study suggests that the amount of serotonin made naturally in the gut ...
Science stat.(SCIENCE NOTEBOOK)(Statistical table)
Dec 20, 2008 ... <Pre> Science Stat Percent of U.S. patents granted to inventors in 2005 by state Total patents: 74,637 Top 5 California 24.10 Texas 7.05 New York6.30 Michigan4.51 Massachusetts ...
Honeybee CSI: why dead bodies can't be found: virus could explain one symptom of colony collapse.(STORY ONE)
Dec 20, 2008; ... There's bad news for diehards still arguing that honeybees are getting abducted by aliens. Beehives across North America continue to lose their workers for reasons not yet understood, a phenomenon called colony collapse disorder. But new tests suggest how a virus nicknamed IAPV ...
Boys may show spatial supremacy within a few months after birth; studies suggest gender gap emerges earlier than expected.(Body & Brain)
Dec 20, 2008; ... The gender gap in spatial abilities emerges within the first few months of life, years earlier than previously thought, psychologists report. Males typically outperform females on spatial-ability tests by age 4, especially on tasks that require mental rotation of objects ...
Ginkgo biloba fails drug test; herb fares no better than placebo against dementia.(Body & Brain)(Brief article)
Dec 20, 2008; ... The supplement ginkgo biloba has failed to ward off Alzheimer's disease or other forms of dementia any better than a placebo in a long-term trial, researchers report in the Nov. 19 Journal of the American Medical Association. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] "This is ...
Sleep makes room for memories by keeping connections flexible; rest reduces synapse-forming molecules in the brain.(Body & Brain)
Dec 20, 2008; ... WASHINGTON -- Sleep not only refreshes the body, it may also push the reset button on the brain, helping the brain stay flexible and ready to learn, new research shows. Whether it is slow-wave sleep or rapid eye movement, called REM, sleep changes the biochemistry of the brain, ...
Treat HIV-positive babies early.(Brief article)
Dec 20, 2008; ... Babies infected with HIV from birth should be given powerful drugs to fight the virus as soon as possible, researchers find. In a comparison of treatment strategies, Avy Violari of the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg and ...
Protein and Parkinson's.(Brief article)
Dec 20, 2008; ... Tossing out the old batteries of brain cells might keep those cells strong, new research suggests. Richard Youle of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke in Bethesda, Md., and ...
Depression hurts the heart.(Brief article)
Dec 20, 2008; ... The long-standing connection between depression and heart problems might be traceable to the fact that depressed people are less physically active than others. A greater tendency in depressed people to smoke and to fail to take ...
Mars conceals buried icy treasure; frozen water reserves discovered in mid-latitude regions.(Atom & Cosmos)
Dec 20, 2008; ... There's ice in them thar hills! Using radar from an orbiting spacecraft to penetrate the hidden recesses of Mars, planetary prospectors have uncovered vast reserves of water-ice buried beneath rocky debris. The ice resides in hilly sections of the Red Planet's southern and ...
Clothes moths offer forensic clues by building fuzzy, hair-flecked cases; larvae pick up tresses from corpses to make their homes.(Life)
Dec 20, 2008; ... RENO, Nev. -- Clothes moths will eat more than our wardrobe. Given a chance, they'll eat us too. Casemaking clothes moth caterpillars can digest human hair and will feed on corpses. But it's not all bad news, scientists say. Hair bits nipped off of corpses by Tinea pellionella ...
Fish that travel together make wiser decisions; when they choose a leader, sticklebacks think as a group.(Life)(Brief article)
Dec 20, 2008; ... Trial juries, Wikipedia and even Top Chef rely on trust in consensus decision making. And in the stickleback fish world, things aren't so different. New research shows that bigger schools are more likely to make good choices, scientists report in the Nov. 25 Current Biology. At ...
Standard model gets right answer; calculation of nucleon mass supports quark-gluon theory.(Matter & Energy)(Brief article)
Dec 20, 2008; ... When it comes to weighty matters, quarks and gluons rule the universe, a new study confirms. One of the largest computational efforts to calculate the masses of protons and neutrons shows that the standard model of particle physics predicts those masses within 4 percent ....
Superconductivity does the twist; electron dance explains loss of resistance in exotic material.(Matter & Energy)
Dec 20, 2008; ... Sometimes a twist might be as good as a jiggle. Or at least, a new study suggests, twisting electrons appear to take the place of jiggling ions in an exotic kind of superconductor. It's the first experiment to show that a type of twisting fluctuations by the material's electrons ...
Many drug trials never published; results are often biased, incomplete or unavailable.(Science & Society)
Dec 20, 2008; ... Patients asking their doctors if a new drug is right for them would do well to also ask for supporting evidence. Conclusions about drug safety and effectiveness in reports submitted to the FDA are sometimes changed in the medical literature to favor the drug, a new analysis finds. And ...
Antidepressants make for sad fish; drugs may affect feeding, swimming and mate-attracting.(Environment)
Dec 20, 2008; ... In the fish world, baby is just another word for lunch. So it behooves aquatic larvae to be ever vigilant. But those that as embryos or hatchlings encounter water polluted with trace concentrations of antidepressants are much more likely to become food. Tons of medicine ends up ...