Current Science, a Weekly Reader publication articles from December 2002

Current Science, a Weekly Reader publication archives from December 2002

Have fun learning about science! (Sci-Trivia Game).(Brief Article)
December 6, 2002... Below are the titles of 25 famous movies in which a word, a word part, or words have been replaced by a scientific or mathematical equivalent, indicated in bold type. Give yourself 10 points each time you get the first question right, 20...

Yesterday once more: 75 years of Current Science.(photograph captions)(Brief Article)
December 6, 2002... April 1-5,1940--When the British ocean liner Queen Elizabeth docked at a pier in New York City, many bystanders wondered why a heavy metal cable had been wrapped around its hull. Current Science explained that when a large ship moves across the...

Quiet forests: illegal hunting in the African bush is endangering many species. (Life).
December 6, 2002... You are hiking deep in a remote African forest. Slivers of sunlight filter through gaps in the trees, lighting your way. Suddenly, you hear a rustling noise and spin around, expecting to come face-to-face with a wart hog or a gorilla. But the...

The big chill: is North America heading into a mini ice age? Some scientists think so, and the surprise culprit is global warming. (Earth).
December 6, 2002... You've probably heard a lot about global warming. You probably know that global temperatures have risen over the last century and that scientists have linked that rise to an increase in carbon dioxide (C[O.sub.2]) in the atmosphere. Why,...

Step on it! Current Science reporter Rene Ebersole takes a spin on a new vehicle that could make feet obsolete. (Physical).
December 6, 2002... So this is the invention that everyone's been talking about--the Segway Human Transporter. At first glance, it's hard to see what all the fuss is about. The Segway looks like a souped-up scooter. It has a set of handlebars connected by a long...

Close call: a deadly infection is striking more U.S. teens and young adults. (Health).
December 6, 2002... Christin VanCamp was scared. The 18-year-old had just gotten home from the funeral of a friend, Jonathan, who had died from meningococcal disease. She seemed to have the same symptoms that Jonathan had when he first got sick: a stiff neck, numb...

Bucktoothed dino unearthed. (Life).(Incisivosaurus gauthieri)(Brief Article)
December 6, 2002... LIAONING PROVINCE, China -- What might happen if you crossbred a Tyrannosaurus rex with Bugs Bunny? You might end up with Incisivosaurus gauthieri, a weird new species of dinosaur found earlier this year. The new species belongs to a group...

Electric skis get a grip on snow. (Technology).(Brief Article)
December 6, 2002... HANOVER, N.H. -- Millions of Americans will have fun cross-country skiing this winter. They'll do it even though cross-country skis need to be waxed before every outing. And as any avid cross-country skier knows, choosing the right kind of wax...

Frozen world found. (Earth).(Brief Article)
December 6, 2002... LOS ANGELES -- Our solar system has a newly discovered member. Scanning the skies last June, two astronomers at the California Institute of Technology found a miniplanet orbiting the sun about a billion miles beyond Pluto. The two...

Insight. (Discoveries).(Brief Article)
December 6, 2002... Did this moon jellyfish just swallow some onion rings? No. The orange rings are its reproductive organs. Jellyfish aren't really fish. They are invertebrates, or animals without a backbone, that are related to corals and sea anemones....

Is the Sahara shrinking? (Earth).(Brief Article)
December 6, 2002... AMSTERDAM -- Africa's Sahara, the world's largest desert, is less large than it once was. The southern Sahara has been slowly shrinking since the mid-1980s, according to satellite surveys analyzed by European scientists. The sand dunes...

Rainstorms might trigger volcanic blowouts. (Earth).(Brief Article)
December 6, 2002... NORWICH, England -- Your daily weather report might one day forecast more than rain, snow, and wind. It might warn of upcoming volcanic eruptions. Scientists at the University of East Anglia have found evidence linking the most dangerous...

Who knew? (Discoveries).(photograph captions)(Brief Article)
December 6, 2002... Closing your eyes when a nurse gives you a needle will make the pain less severe, according to British pain researchers. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Australia is dotted by many pink-colored lakes. The lakes are extremely salty and get their...

Too weird. (Discoveries).(Brief Article)
December 6, 2002... DETROIT -- A female whitespotted bamboo shark shocked officials at the Belle Isle Aquarium by laying eggs that hatched into three baby sharks last summer. Females need males to fertilize their eggs with sperm. But this particular female had not...

Ask professor Ossolotch. (Discoveries).(Brief Article)
December 6, 2002... Why doesn't white glue stick to the inside of the bottle? Cody Bearce Milton, Pa. Dear Cody, White glue doesn't stick to the inside of the bottle because it has a split personality. It's unsticky inside the bottle but sticky...

Bend your mind. (Optricks).(photograph caption)(Brief Article)
December 6, 2002... Connect the twelve dots with just five straight lines without lifting your pencil. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Whatizit? (Optricks).(photograph caption)(Brief Article)
December 6, 2002... This close-up is of one of the most unusual types of rock in the world. Its is a metamorphic rock that can resist temperatures high enough to melt nearly every know element. Its fibers can be spun into long, fire-resistant threads. Many schools...

Have fun learning about science! (Sci-Triv Game).
December 20, 2002... Want to play a game of science trivia? See how many points you can win by correctly answering the following questions. To find your score, 10 points each time you get the first question right, 20 points for each and so on. Any question in a...

Yesterday once more: 75 years of current science.
December 20, 2002... April 15-19, 1940--Auguste Piccard, a famous Swiss physician, announced his design for a balloon that would go down into the ocean instead of up into the air. Piccard had become famous in 1931, when he became the first human to ascend into the...

Dry, U.S.A.: one of the worst droughts in recent memory gripped the United States this year. Is any relief in sight? (Earth)(Cover Story).
December 20, 2002... NINETY-TWO-YEAR-OLD Larry Morgan, a rancher and farmer from Goodland, Kans., has lived through many dry spells. The worst one was the Dust Bowl drought of the 1930s, when dry weather lasted seven years and savage wind and dust storms raged...

The rescuers: the environment is more than a course of study for these students. It's also a course of action. (Life/Physical).
December 20, 2002... In 1850, Earth was home to about 1 billion people. Today, it has 6 billion. That population explosion has put a huge strain on the environment. Garbage is piling up; wilderness is succumbing to development; pollution is choking the air and the...

Smoke screen: new vaccines now being tested might help prevent people from becoming hooked on smoking. (Health).
December 20, 2002... Jasmine Baldwin, a 12-year-old Florida student, doesn't smoke but knows many kids who do. "A lot of people my age end up smoking because they think it's cool," Jasmine told a reporter from WESH-TV in Winter Park, Fla. Smoking might soon...

Lorenzo's oil works. (Health).(treatment for 5-year-old who had a genetic disease )
December 20, 2002... BALTIMORE -- Seventeen years ago, Lorenzo Odone, 5, started bumping into furniture. His parents, Augusto and Michaela, took him to a doctor and were given a shocking diagnosis. Lorenzo had adrenoleukodystrophy (ALD), a genetic disease for which...

Did Earth have a ring? (Earth).
December 20, 2002... ALBUQUERQUE, N.Mex. -- If a science test asked you how many planets have rings, and you answered "four"--Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune--you'd be right. If you took the test 35 million years ago, however, you might have been wrong. Two...

Funny accent mystery decoded. (Health).(foreign accent syndrome happens to some people who begin to speaking with a foreign accent after they have had a head injury or stroke)
December 20, 2002... OXFORD, England -- Two years ago, Wendy Hasnip, 47, experienced a brain injury that left her speechless for two weeks. When she finally recovered, she found herself talking with what seemed to be a French accent. "I [phoned] a friend the other...

Duct tape heals warts. (Health).
December 20, 2002... TACOMA, Wash. -- Duct tape has a million uses--patching leaky pipes, repairing broken toys, holding down toupees, and so on. According to one report, a zoo even used duct tape to shut a kangaroo's pouch because the joey kept popping out before...

Too weird. (Discoveries).(Stan Jones has a skin condition called argyria that turns his skin blue)
December 20, 2002... GREAT FALLS, Mont. -- Sixty-three-year-old Stan Jones is blue--and not because he's feeling depressed. Jones has argyria, a condition that turns the skin gray, black, or blue. Jones is a business consultant and part-time college instructor and...

Insight. (Discoveries).
December 20, 2002... Computer manufacturers have made keyboards lighter and lighter over the years. Now a Silicon Valley company has made the lightest keyboard of all, one that is simply a beam of light. A special tiny projector beams an image of a keyboard onto a...