Current Science, a Weekly Reader publication articles from April 2005

Current Science, a Weekly Reader publication archives from April 2005

Sci-triv game: have fun learning about science!(science test)
April 8, 2005... Class! Put away your biology, geology, and gastroenterology textbooks. It's time for the annual Current Science quiz on Simpsonology. See how many points you can win by correctly answering the following questions about the scientific world...

Mombasa, Kenya--two years ago, park rangers observed an unusual pairing when a lioness adopted a baby oryx, a type of antelope that lions normally like to eat.(Who? Knew)
April 8, 2005... MOMBASA, Kenya -- Two years ago, park rangers observed an unusual pairing when a lioness adopted a baby oryx, a type of antelope that lions normally like to eat. Then, in late December, rangers witnessed a 120-year-old male tortoise adopt a...

Cape Sable Island, Nova Scotia--lobster fishers in Canada have made several unusual catches this winter.(Who? Knew)
April 8, 2005... CAPE SABLE ISLAND, Nova Scotia -- Lobster fishers in Canada have made several unusual catches this winter. One lobster had three claws, one was yellow, and one was red and black. But the crustacean caught by lobsterman Murray Townsend in...

Waste deep: our discarded computers are polluting the developing world. What can you do to stop it?(Physical)(Cover Story)
April 8, 2005... Visit the streets of a Chinese village called Guiyu (GWEE-yoo), and you might see a child dragging a computer mouse behind her. Computer mice are favorite new toys in Guiyu. Thanks to the village's computer-recycling industry, the people of...

Home alone: what should Alaska do with its only elephant?(Life)
April 8, 2005... Maggie the elephant was born in South Africa in 1982. While still a calf, she was transported to the Alaska Zoo in Anchorage, where she has lived ever since. When Maggie arrived in Alaska, the zoo already had one pachyderm, a female Asian...

Grand experiment: can controlled floods restore the ecosystem of the Colorado River?(Earth)
April 8, 2005... On November 21, 2004, an enormous flood shot through the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon. The liver raged for two and a half days at a rate of 1,160 cubic meters (41.000 cubic feet) of water per second. Dozens of scientists rafted the wild...

Pain killer: abusing the drug OxyContin is a prescription for disaster.(Health)
April 8, 2005... A Pretty, energetic cheerleader and member of the high school track team in Pennington Gap, Va.--that was Lindsay Myers before a small tablet dubbed Oxy changed her life. At 16, Lindsay began crushing and snorting the prescription painkiller as...

Gaining on pain: pain relief comes in different forms.(Discoveries)
April 8, 2005... The body does not feel pain until a message reaches the central nervous system (brain and spinal cord). Opiate drugs (oxycodone, morphine) relieve pain by activating the body's pain modulatory system. That is a set of nerves in the brain and...

Teen survives rabies.(Health)
April 8, 2005... FOND DU LAC, Wis. -- Last September, Jeanna Giese, 15, was attending church when she noticed that a brown bat had tumbled to the floor. Jeanna has a soft spot for animals and picked up the bat. On the way outdoors to set the bat free, it bit...

Probe finds world of wonders: an artist's impression of the Huygens probe coming in for a landing on Titan.(Earth)
April 8, 2005... DARMSTADT, Germany -- The European space probe Huygens treated scientists back home to astonishing sights as it dropped through the orange skies of Saturn's largest moon, Titan, on January 14. Photos radioed back to Earth showed a landscape...

Dog walks on all twos.(Too Weird)(handicapped dog)
April 8, 2005... OKLAHOMA CITY--Most dogs can stand on their hind legs to beg for food or attention. But Faith, a Labrador-chow chow crossbreed, has only two hind legs and has no choice but to get around on them all the time. Several years ago, Reuben...

Early mammals were livin' large.(Life)(fossils)
April 8, 2005... LIAONING PROVINCE, China -- Score one for the mammals! Chinese scientists have identified the fossilized remains of two prehistoric mammals that lived about 130 million years ago, during the reign of the dinosaurs. One mammal was about as big...

Tsunami theory attacked.(Update)
April 8, 2005... HILO, Hawaii -- A group of tsunami researchers has challenged the prediction made by a British scientist that a huge wave of water will one day swamp the east coast of the United States. Bill McGuire, a volcanic-hazards expert at University...

Insight.(Discoveries)
April 8, 2005... What do you get when you mix glass and cement? You get concrete t you can see through. Called LiTraCon, the new construction material was invented by a Hungarian architect, Aron Losonczi. The glass in LiTraCon is optical fibers, fine strands of...

Mystery photos.(Optricks)
April 8, 2005... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Top: falling snow Middle: basketball Bottom: computer Keyboard

Whatizit?(Optricks)
April 8, 2005... Leaf me alone! That's the message that this animal sends to birds and other predators. The animal is a mimic, a living thing that looks or behaves like another living thing. What might this mimic, which lives in the tropics and can fly, really...

Bend your mind.(Optricks)
April 8, 2005... How is a single piece of paper cut and folded to achieve this effect? Using a rectangular piece of paper: 1. Make two cuts halfway through from opposite sides. 2. Fold the larger flap up on one side 3. From the opposite side,...

Sci-Triv Game: have fun learning about science.
April 22, 2005... This special career edition of the Sci-Triv Game features 25 people who have made significant achievements in the fields of science and technology. In the columns headed Life, Health, Physical, and Earth Science, use each clue to find the last...

Xi'An, China--Have you ever eaten sticky rice?(WHO? KNEW)(Brief Article)
April 22, 2005... XI'AN, China--Have you ever eaten sticky rice? Also called glutinous rice or sweet rice, sticky rice cooks to a thick starchy mass and is often used in desserts. People in China often eat sticky rice porridge for breakfast. In February,...

Dodgeville, Wis.--Janelle Simpson couldn't believe her eyes when she stepped outdoors to feed her mini horse one morning in January.(WHO? KNEW)(Brief Article)
April 22, 2005... DODGEVILLE, Wis.--Janelle Simpson couldn't believe her eyes when she stepped outdoors to feed her mini horse one morning in January. There, hopping around the barn, was a red kangaroo! Simpson rang up Sheriff Steve Michek, who couldn't believe...

Going to extremes: Roman Dial combines his two passions: exotic biology and dangerous sports.(LIFE)
April 22, 2005... IF YOU EVER JOIN BIOLOGIST ROMAN DIAL in the field, you'll have to dangle hundreds of feet off the ground in a tropical forest. You'll also have to bike across untracked mountain ranges, paddle through treacherous rapids, and ski over glaciers...

Great Scott! Monisha Scott's knowledge of microbes was weak but she still went on to make a major breakthrough in the medical fight against infectious bugs.(HEALTH)
April 22, 2005... Monisha Scott had no definite career plans when she enrolled in the general-science program at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in 1989. Even when she graduated four years later with a degree in biology, she still wasn't sure what she...

Vision quest: when Saul Griffith discovered that school is cool, he invented a prize-winning eyeglass lens maker and created a science comic strip.(PHYSICAL)
April 22, 2005... "MY SUCCESS SURPRISES everyone now," said Saul Griffith. Growing up in Sydney, Australia, Griffith was an average student. "It's not that I was lazy. I was doing a ton of stuff, but all of it was outside the school curriculum," he said....

Coal miner's daughter: former convenience store clerk Julia Bonds is one of the country's leading citizen activists.(EARTH)
April 22, 2005... "WHAT'S WRONG WITH THESE FISH?" 6-year-old Andrew Jones asked his grandmother Julia Bonds one day in 1997. The fish were floating belly-up in a stream that ran by Bonds's house in Marfork Hollow, W.Va. A chemical spill from a nearby...

Activist saves turtles.(LIFE)
April 22, 2005... TALLAHASSEE, Fla.--One summer day in 2000, Matt Aresco was driving along a stretch of U.S. Highway 27 in northwestern Florida when several smashed turtle shells on the pavement caught his eye. Aresco slammed on the brakes and leaped out of the...

Student astronomer wins prize.(EARTH)(John Davis)
April 22, 2005... MACEDON, N.Y.--John Davis, 18, is a do-it-yourself amateur astronomer. Faced with time and equipment shortages, he made his own stargazing instruments and even built a backyard observatory. His ingenuity won him first place in the 2004 National...

Teens' cancer research takes top award.(HEALTH)(Lucie Guo; Xianlin Li)
April 22, 2005... CHAPEL HILL, N.C.--Lucie Guo first met Xianlin Li when Li asked for directions to a class at East Chapel Hill High School. The two girls had no clue that three years later they would share the top award in the team category from the nation's...

Too weird: hygienist fixes foul mouths.(DISCOVERIES)(Pat Lenton)(Brief Article)
April 22, 2005... MINNEAPOLIS--Pat Lenton has earned reputation in the scientific community sticking her nose in other people's business--right inside their mouths, in fact. Lenton studies and helps people control oral malodor--bad breath. Lenton is a research...

Young genius: unfolds math secrets.(MATH)(Erik Demaine)
April 22, 2005... CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--Erik Demaine is the youngest person ever hired to be a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He has published more than 100 academic papers and received a $500,000 MacArthur Foundation "genius" award....

Mystery photos.(Optricks)
April 22, 2005... Top: shaving cream Middle: flame igniter Bottom: chalkboard eraser [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Bend your mind.(Optricks)
April 22, 2005... Guess the percentage by which the right bar is longer than the left bar. Then measure each bar with a ruler and calculate the true percentage. How close was your guess? The two bars are the same size. The lines narrowing to a point behind...

What iz it?(Optricks)
April 22, 2005... Use your little gray cells to determine what type of ocean-dwelling cnidarian this is. Its surface, shown in close-up above, has convolutions that resemble the gyri of a thoughful human organ. What might this animal be? brain coral ...