AScribe Science News Service articles from December 2003

AScribe Science News Service archives from December 2003

Scientists Report New Type of Mid-Ocean Ridge in Remote Parts of Earth.
December 1, 2003... Byline: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution WOODS HOLE, Mass., Dec. 1 (AScribe Newswire) -- Scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have identified a new type of ocean ridge that is spreading so slowly that Earth's...

Fox or Eagle: The Price of Saving a Species.
December 1, 2003... Byline: University of California, Davis DAVIS, Calif., Dec. 1 (AScribe Newswire) -- Perhaps few people would argue that a vanishing population of unique native foxes should be protected at all costs from non-native predators. But what if...

University of Colorado at Boulder's 'Little Satellite That Did' Set for Re-Entry in Coming Days.
December 1, 2003... Byline: University of Colorado, Boulder BOULDER, Colo., Dec. 1 (AScribe Newswire) -- A $5 million University of Colorado at Boulder satellite dubbed the "Little Satellite That Did" now is expected to re-enter the atmosphere and burn up in...

Sally Ride Science Club, Smith College, Hasbro Inc. Announce Second Annual Toy Design Challenge for Middle School-Age Kids; National Contest Encourages Kids, Especially Girls, to Pursue Interest in Science, Engineering While Having Fun.
December 1, 2003... Byline: Smith College SAN DIEGO, Calif., Dec. 1 (AScribe Newswire) -- Sally Ride and Hasbro, Inc. (NYSE: HAS) announced today the launch of the second annual TOYchallenge, a fun-fueled toy- and game-design competition created to motivate...

NASA Spacecraft Pinpoints Where the Wild Thing Is.
December 1, 2003... Byline: Jet Propulsion Laboratory PASADENA, Calif., Dec. 1 (AScribe Newswire) -- Forty-nine days before its historic rendezvous with a comet, NASA's Stardust spacecraft successfully photographed its quarry, comet Wild 2 (pronounced...

December 'Star Trak': Saturn and Meteor Shower Light Up Skies.
December 2, 2003... Byline: Indiana University BLOOMINGTON, Ind., Dec. 2 (AScribe Newswire) -- Normally the Geminid meteor shower is the best of the year. Fewer people are willing to brave the cold of a December night to see it, however, so it is less well...

University of California Asks Revelers to Help Control Pitch Canker by Disposing of Christmas Trees Promptly.
December 2, 2003... Byline: University of California Division of Agriculture FRESNO, Calif., Dec. 2 (AScribe Newswire) -- University of California scientists recommend the public dispose of their Christmas trees quickly and properly after Christmas to help...

Mars Rovers Head for Exciting Landings in January.
December 2, 2003... Byline: Jet Propulsion Laboratory PASADENA, Calif., Dec. 2 (AScribe Newswire) -- NASA's robotic Mars geologist, Spirit, embodying America's enthusiasm for exploration, must run a grueling gantlet of challenges before it can start examining...

NASA Contributes to Earthquake Research.
December 2, 2003... Byline: Jet Propulsion Laboratory PASADENA, Calif., Dec. 2 (AScribe Newswire) -- Ten years ago next month, Southern California was rocked by the deadly magnitude 6.7 Northridge earthquake, one of the costliest natural disasters in U.S....

Chabot Space & Science Center Rings in the Holidays with Saturn, Expanded Holiday Hours, Programs for Space Explorers of All Ages.
December 2, 2003... Byline: Chabot Space & Science Center OAKLAND, Calif., Dec. 2 (AScribe Newswire) -- Nearly twice as large as Mars appeared last summer, this winter Saturn will be brighter and closer to Earth than it has been in over 30 years. This rare...

Ohio Supercomputer Center Receives $6 Million for Springfield Branch.
December 3, 2003... Byline: Ohio Supercomputer Center SPRINGFIELD, Ohio, Dec. 3 (AScribe Newswire) -- The Ohio Supercomputer Center (OSC) has received $6 million from the United States Department of Energy (DOE) to establish a supercomputing center in...

Findings Offer Clue to How Molecule Can Both Stimulate, Suppress Cell Growth; Provide Insight Into Cancer Role.
December 3, 2003... Byline: Vanderbilt Medical Center NASHVILLE, Tenn., Dec. 3 (AScribe Newswire) -- Scientists are puzzled by the fact that the molecule known as transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-beta) generally stops cells from multiplying but at other...

NASA, Air Force Achieve Key Milestones on Next-Generation Engine.
December 3, 2003... Byline: NASA Marshall Space Flight Center HUNTSVILLE, Ala., Dec. 3 (AScribe Newswire) -- NASA, the U.S Air Force and two prime aerospace contractors have successfully completed testing of two key rocket engine components -- critical...

New York Academy of Sciences and Nature Publishing Group Create Unique Partnership to Enhance Scientific Knowledge.
December 4, 2003... Byline: New York Academy of Sciences NEW YORK, Dec. 4 (AScribe Newswire) -- The Nature Publishing Group, publishers of the world-renowned journal Nature, has joined forces with the New York Academy of Sciences, the prestigious international...

McGill University Scientists Study Heart Disease in Heartless Microscopic Worms; Invertebrate Dirt-Dwellers Can Be Used to Study Human Disease, Biologists Relate in Science.(Brief Article)
December 4, 2003... Byline: McGill University MONTREAL, Dec. 4 (AScribe Newswire) -- What's in a worm? More than we think. In the latest issue of Science, McGill University Biology Professor Siegfried Hekimi and his research team explain how scientists can...

Easily Paralyzed Flies Provide Clues to Neurodegeneration.
December 4, 2003... Byline: University of Wisconsin - Madison MADISON, Wis., Dec. 4 (AScribe Newswire) -- With a slight tweak of temperature, geneticist Barry Ganetzky's flies drop like, well, flies. For 25 years, Ganetzky has been identifying, breeding...

Mars Missions Have International Flavor.
December 5, 2003... Byline: Jet Propulsion Laboratory PASADENA, Calif., Dec. 5 (AScribe Newswire) -- A European Space Agency mission that will arrive at Mars this month has American participants, and Europeans are team members for two NASA spacecraft that...

Bruce Stillman Named President of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory; James D. Watson Appointed Chancellor.
December 5, 2003... Byline: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory COLD SPRING HARBOR, N.Y., Dec. 5 (AScribe Newswire) -- Bruce Stillman, Ph.D., F.R.S., has been named President and Chief Executive Officer of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, by vote of its Board of...

Recycle Christmas Trees Promptly to Protect Wild Forests.(Brief Article)
December 5, 2003... Byline: University of California, Davis DAVIS, Calif., Dec. 5 (AScribe Newswire) -- A UC Davis scientist warns that Christmas trees should be recycled quickly and correctly to protect yard trees and wild forests from a deadly, spreading...

Roundup Resistance Armors Weeds.
December 5, 2003... Byline: University of California, Davis DAVIS, Calif., Dec. 5 (AScribe Newswire) -- California's weeds are getting more stubborn. Tom Lanini, a UC Davis weed ecologist, estimates that Roundup-resistant weeds now affect 5,000 acres of...

Purdue University Researchers Create Templates on Retinal Tissues.
December 5, 2003... Byline: Purdue University WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind., Dec. 5 (AScribe Newswire) -- Researchers at Purdue University have created scaffold-like patterns on the surface of a pig's retina, making templates out of molecular compounds called peptides...

Best Paper Award Announced for TRI/Princeton's International Conference on Applied Hair Science Award Sponsored by Wella AG.
December 5, 2003... Byline: TRI/Princeton PRINCETON, N.J., Dec. 5 (AScribe Newswire) -- TRI/Princeton, an international leader in hair and cosmetic chemistry research, is proud to announce that Wella AG has agreed to sponsor the Best Paper Award in the amount...

NASA Scientists Use Radar to Detect Asteroid Force.
December 5, 2003... Byline: Jet Propulsion Laboratory PASADENA, Calif., Dec. 5 (AScribe Newswire) -- NASA scientists have for the first time detected a tiny but theoretically important force acting on asteroids by measuring an extremely subtle change in a...

Major Greenland Glacier, Once Stable, Now Shrinking Dramatically.
December 8, 2003... Byline: Ohio State University SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 8 (AScribe Newswire) -- One of the world's fastest-moving glaciers is speeding up and retreating rapidly, a recent study has revealed. The finding has surprised scientists, because...

University of Iowa's Don Gurnett Says Voyager 1 Is Approaching Edge of Solar System.
December 8, 2003... Byline: University of Iowa IOWA CITY, Iowa, Dec. 8 (AScribe Newswire) -- A University of Iowa space physicist says that NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft -- the most distant manmade object at some 90 astronomical units (AU) or 8.4 billion miles...

Yeast Helps Researchers Better Understand Parkinson's Mystery.
December 8, 2003... Byline: The Whitehead Institute CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Dec. 8 (AScribe Newswire) -- Scientists know that in patients with Parkinson's disease, certain proteins in the brain form clusters that somehow contribute to cell death and, eventually,...

Earth Radiation Belts Spectacular Following Halloween Solar Storm.
December 8, 2003... Byline: University of Colorado, Boulder BOULDER, Colo., Dec. 8 (AScribe Newswire) -- The belt of high-energy electrons that normally cradles Earth from afar was greatly enhanced and pushed unusually close to our atmosphere during the...

Odyssey Studies Changing Weather, Climate on Mars.
December 8, 2003... Byline: Jet Propulsion Laboratory PASADENA, Calif., Dec. 8 (AScribe Newswire) -- Mars may be going through a period of climate change, new findings from NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter suggest. Odyssey has been mapping the distribution of...

Johns Hopkins Technology Will Guide Hybrid Undersea Robot; Navigation and Control Systems to Be Developed in Collaboration With Hopkins Researchers.
December 9, 2003... Byline: Johns Hopkins University BALTIMORE, Dec. 9 (AScribe Newswire) -- The robotic "brain" that will steer a new remotely operated vehicle through the deepest parts of the world's oceans will employ technology devised by engineers at The...

Research Generates Reliable Energy Source During Outages.
December 9, 2003... Byline: University of Wisconsin - Madison MADISON, Wis., Dec. 9 (AScribe Newswire) -- As utility companies search for ways to avoid blackouts like the one that shut down the northeastern corner of the United States last summer, one idea...

Purdue University's Self-Assembled 'Nanorings' Could Boost Computer Memory.
December 10, 2003... Byline: Purdue University WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind., Dec. 10 (AScribe Newswire) -- Recent nanotechnology research at Purdue University could pave the way toward faster computer memories and higher density magnetic data storage, all with an...

NASA Scientists Discover Spring Thaw Makes a Difference.
December 10, 2003... Byline: Jet Propulsion Laboratory PASADENA, Calif., Dec. 10 (AScribe Newswire) -- Using a suite of microwave remote sensing instruments aboard satellites, scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., and the University...

NASA Mission Captures Galaxies Galore.
December 10, 2003... Byline: Jet Propulsion Laboratory PASADENA, Calif., Dec. 10 (AScribe Newswire) -- The most sensitive and comprehensive ultraviolet image ever taken of the Andromeda Galaxy, our nearest large neighbor galaxy, has been captured by NASA's...

Custom Kids? Genetic Testing of Embryos: Thought Leaders to Examine Policy Options for Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis.
December 11, 2003... Byline: Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions BALTIMORE, Dec. 11 (AScribe Newswire) -- The confluence of advances in human genetics and reproductive science has resulted in the ability to perform genetic tests on embryos produced by in vitro...

Smoky Mountains Biodiversity Project Goes 'Top to Bottom'.
December 12, 2003... Byline: Bowling Green State University BOWLING GREEN, Ohio, Dec. 12 (AScribe Newswire) -- From the treetops on the highest peaks to the minute algae on the mossy rocks in their valleys, the Great Smoky Mountains are home to one of the...

NASA Announces New Name, New Pictures for Space Telescope.
December 15, 2003... Byline: Jet Propulsion Laboratory PASADENA, Calif., Dec. 15 (AScribe Newswire) -- The first colorful and revealing cosmic images from NASA's Space Infrared Telescope Facility will be unveiled at a news conference Thursday, Dec. 18. NASA...

Wright Brothers' Success Built on Failure, Duke Experts Say.
December 16, 2003... Byline: Duke University DURHAM, N.C., Dec. 16 (AScribe Newswire) -- The Wright brothers owed the success of their Dec. 17, 1903 first flight, at least in part, to the many failures of aviation pioneers before them, according to Duke...

Keeping Found Things Found: Web Tools Don't Always Mesh With How People Work.
December 17, 2003... Byline: National Science Foundation ARLINGTON, Va., Dec. 17 (AScribe Newswire) -- Of all the personal computers to be unwrapped during the holiday season, more than 80 percent will be used to go online and search the Web's more than 92...

Science Paper: Overharvesting of Brazil Nuts Leading to Fewer Trees.
December 18, 2003... Byline: University of Florida GAINESVILLE, Fla., Dec. 18 (AScribe Newswire) -- Brazil nuts, those time-honored holiday stocking stuffers, will continue to help save the rainforest -- as long at least a few of the brown morsels are left...

Less Is More: New Technology Captures Gene-Rich DNA Segments; Sequencing Key Regions Speeds Genome Research in Corn, Other Important Crop Species.
December 18, 2003... Byline: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory COLD SPRING HARBOR, N.Y., Dec. 18 (AScribe Newswire) -- Obtaining genome sequence information frequently leads to breakthroughs in the study of a particular organism. Bringing agriculturally important...

NASA Releases Dazzling Images From New Space Telescope.
December 18, 2003... Byline: Jet Propulsion Laboratory PASADENA, Calif., Dec. 18 (AScribe Newswire) -- A new window to the universe has opened with today's release of the first dazzling images from NASA's newly named Spitzer Space Telescope, formerly known as...

NASA Announces New Name for Space Infrared Telescope Facility.
December 18, 2003... Byline: Jet Propulsion Laboratory PASADENA, Calif., Dec. 18 (AScribe Newswire) -- NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe today announced that NASA's Space Infrared Telescope Facility has been renamed the Spitzer Space Telescope. It was named in...

Filling the Dinner Plates for Winter Ducks, Geese.
December 18, 2003... Byline: University of California, Davis DAVIS, Calif., Dec. 18 (AScribe Newswire) -- As California's migratory season peaks, UC Davis scientists are asking how well our wetlands support wintering waterfowl. California provides winter...

Purdue University, Roche Diagnostics Extend Entry Deadline in $147,000 Life Sciences Business Plan Competition.
December 18, 2003... Byline: Purdue University WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind., Dec. 18 (AScribe Newswire) -- The deadline for entering and submitting executive summaries for the Second Annual Life Sciences Business Plan Competition has been extended to Jan. 26. The...

Pair of Discoveries Helps Unravel Complex Genetics of Inflammatory Bowel Disease; Scientists Find First Gene Involved in Causing Ulcerative Colitis.
December 19, 2003... Byline: Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions BALTIMORE, Dec. 19 (AScribe Newswire) -- Researchers at Johns Hopkins have linked versions of two different genes with the inflammatory bowel diseases known as Crohn's disease and ulcerative...

Carnegie Mellon's Smart Robots to Give Museum Visitors a Taste of Exploring Mars As Nasa Rovers Look for Water on Red Planet.
December 22, 2003... Byline: Carnegie Mellon University PITTSBURGH, Dec. 22 (AScribe Newswire) -- As NASA's twin robot geologists Spirit and Opportunity prepare to land on Mars in January, a cadre of 20 smart robots developed by researchers at Carnegie Mellon...

Seismologist Available at Fresno State in California.(Brief Article)
December 22, 2003... Byline: Calif. State University, Fresno FRESNO, Calif., Dec. 22 (AScribe Newswire) -- Dr. Stephen Lewis, a seismologist and earth and environmental sciences professor at California State University, Fresno, is available for comment today on...

Update: Seismologists Available at Fresno State University, Morro Bay in California.(Brief Article)
December 22, 2003... Byline: Calif. State University, Fresno FRESNO, Calif., Dec. 22 (AScribe Newswire) -- Dr. Stephen Lewis, a geophysicist on the Fresno State Earth and Environmental Sciences (geology) faculty, is available today and Tuesday for comment on...

Armies of Fighting Fungi Protect Chocolate Trees.
December 23, 2003... Byline: Duke University DURHAM, N.C., Dec. 23 (AScribe Newswire) -- Biologists have discovered a new and intricate ecological relationship between cacao trees and the ubiquitous fungi that inhabit them, in which the trees are protected by...

Ion Engine Under Consideration for Jupiter Mission Passes Test.
December 24, 2003... Byline: Jet Propulsion Laboratory PASADENA, Calif., Dec. 24 (AScribe Newswire) -- A new ion propulsion engine design, one of several candidate propulsion technologies under study by NASA's Project Prometheus for possible use on the...

Star Trak: January Presents Bright Planets, Meteors.
December 31, 2003... Byline: Indiana University BLOOMINGTON, Ind., Dec. 31 (AScribe Newswire) -- The Quadrantid meteor shower will be active for the first week of January, peaking on Jan. 4 during the hours before dawn. The moon will be almost full, so...

NASA Comet Hunter Closing on Quarry.
December 31, 2003... Byline: Jet Propulsion Laboratory PASADENA, Calif., Dec. 31 (AScribe Newswire) -- Having trekked 3.2 billion kilometers (2 billion miles) across cold, radiation-charged and interstellar-dust-swept space in just under five years, NASA's...