Current Science, a Weekly Reader publication articles from December 2004

Current Science, a Weekly Reader publication archives from December 2004

Sci-Triv game: have fun learning about science!
December 3, 2004... Have fun learning about science! Below are the tiles of 25 science-fiction and monster movies in which a word or number has been replaced by a scientific or mathematical equivalent, indicated in italics. Give yourself 10 points each time...

Mystery photo contest: name that UFO!
December 3, 2004... What might happen when aliens from outer space finally reach Earth? Will an all-out war ensue, as in the movie Independence Day, or will Earthlings and aliens make beautiful music together, as in Close Encounters of the Third Kind? Two classic...

Getting a head: who will volunteer for the first head transplant? The technique is already here.(Health)(Surgical anastomosis)
December 3, 2004... In the 1959 horror movie The Brain That Wouldn't Die, surgeon Bill Cortner is obsessed with experimenting on human subjects, dead or alive. When his girlfriend Jan is decapitated in a car accident, Cortner refuses to let an opportunity pass him...

Short cuts: could wormholes bridge the vast distances of outer space?(Earth/Physical)
December 3, 2004... "Open the Iris." That's the command Gen. George Hammond always gives before the Stargate explorers embark on an intergalactic voyage in the popular TV/series. Behind the Iris lies the mouth of a wormhole, a passage connecting Earth with other...

Bug bots: could robots evolve minds--and deadly tastes--of their own?(Physical)
December 3, 2004... In Prey, Michael Crichton's latest sci-fi novel, dust-sized robots escape from a laboratory in the Nevada desert. The robots can store solar energy, sense their surroundings, communicate with one another, and even fly. They can also reproduce...

Designer genes: will DNA technology let parents design their kids?(Life)
December 3, 2004... In the 1997 science-fiction movie Gattaca, lead character Vincent Freeman is one of the "In-Valids." When Freeman was a baby, a test of his DNA revealed that he would grow up to have bad eyesight and die at age 30. With such poor prospects, he...

Flying saucers are coming!(Technology)
December 3, 2004... SARATOV, Russia -- If you happen to look up at the sky one day soon and spot a flying saucer, don't flip out. Mars is not attacking. The spacecraft could be EKIP, an aircraft that looks like a flying saucer. EKIP (short for ecology and...

Life on Mars?(Earth)(Brief Article)
December 3, 2004... ENDURANCE CRATER, Mars -- Mars may not harbor the kinds of freaky creatures--giant bat spiders, devil girls, and little green men--that inhabit science-fiction stories about the Red Planet. But evidence collected by recent Mars missions points...

Robot eats flesh.(Too Weird)(Brief Article)
December 3, 2004... BRISTOL, England -- What would you get if you crossed an animal with a machine--say, a frog and a robot? You might get EcoBot II, a robot that munches on flies. EcoBot II generates energy from the food it consumes, just like a living...

Did E.T. phone Earth?(Physical)(extraterrestrial)
December 3, 2004... MADISON, Wis. -- Like most Internet users, Nate Coffin receives a lot of strange e-mail. But nothing could be stranger than the message he received earlier this year--a possible transmission from intelligent life far out in the galaxy. ...

Ask professor Ossolotch: is it possible to travel through time?(Brief Article)
December 3, 2004... Not at the moment, Todd, but maybe soon. Ronald Mallett, a professor of physics at the University of Connecticut, has plans for the world's first time machine. Mallett's blueprint takes off from Albert Einstein's general theory of...

Discoveries.
December 3, 2004... Fill in the Blank Find the word or words that best complete each sentence. Write the words in the blanks. 1. -- (C[H.sub.4]) is a gas released through volcanic or biological activity. 2. The EcoBot II robot generates electricity...

Sci-triv game.(Illustration)
December 17, 2004... Have fun learning about science! Want to play a game of science trivia? See how many points you can win by correctly answering the questions below. To find your score, give yourself 10 points each time you get the first question right,...

Who knew?(goldfish live 15 or 20 years)(Brief Article)
December 17, 2004... ELK GROVE VILLAGE, Ill. -- In 1985, when Steve Bennett was 10, he won a dozen goldfish at a school fair. A week later, all but one of the fish were dead. Today the lone survivor, named Max, is still alive and closing in on his 20th birthday!...

Super soaker: a giant landslide in the Atlantic will send monster waves crashing into the North American coast. The only question is: when?(Earth)(Cover Story)
December 17, 2004... Two hundred kilometers off the northwest coast of Africa, waves crash onto the black sandy beaches of La Palma, one of the Canary Islands. Gentle breezes rustle the leaves of the island's almond and banana trees, and dolphins frolic just...

Professor Popsicle: a Canadian scientist chills way out to learn survival strategies in freezing temperatures.(Life)(falling throught the ice)
December 17, 2004... With the frigid Canadian winter air nipping at his nose, Gordon Giesbrecht skied across the powdery snow. Suddenly, the ice under the snow broke, plunging him into freezing-cold lake water. In other circumstances, Giesbrecht might have...

Short story: why are Americans no longer among the tallest people in the world?(Health)
December 17, 2004... One hundred years ago, Americans were among the tallest people in the world--and growing taller with every generation. Then, about 50 years ago, that growth came to a stop. Stature continued to climb in many other countries, and Western...

Beetle wings.(Physical)
December 17, 2004... Kai Rogers was pumping gas at a rustic gas station in northern British Columbia when people started to gather around for a closer look at his car. "They thought it was pretty cool," the 13-year-old from Saratoga Springs, Utah, told Current...

Microscope sees atoms.(Technology)(Brief Article)
December 17, 2004... OAK RIDGE, Tenn. -- As scientists continue to look farther into outer space, they are also probing deeper in the opposite direction--into inner space. A U.S. research institute, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, announced in September that it...

Earth is a humdinger.(Earth)(Brief Article)
December 17, 2004... BERKELEY, Calif. -- Six years ago, Japanese scientists discovered that Earth "hums." Vibrations pass through the ground at a rate of about one per minute, making it rise a fraction of an inch each time one goes by. At the time, no one knew...

Teen plants forest.(Life)(Gloria Barron Prize )
December 17, 2004... CONCORD, N.C. -- Matthew Rich, 17, got a surprise phone call last year. The person on the line was Deano Orr, an executive with International Paper, the world's biggest paper and forest products company. Orr phoned to offer Rich 1,000 trees....

Fur flies over squirrel.(Too Weird)(Brief Article)
December 17, 2004... MISSISSAUGA, Ontario -- Steve Patterson, a Canadian naturalist and educator, drove to Indiana last June and bought a baby northern flying squirrel (Glaucomys sabrinus) from a rodent supply company. Back at the Canadian border, Patterson filled...

Was artist walleyed?(Health)
December 17, 2004... CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Margaret Livingstone noticed something peculiar while touring the Louvre Museum in Paris two years ago. In several self-portraits painted by the famous Dutch artist Rembrandt (1606-1669), his eyes appear to be misaligned....

Mystery photos.(Optricks)
December 17, 2004... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Top: fly-fishing hook Middle: soft-drink can Bottom: tennis racket

Whatizit?(Optricks)
December 17, 2004... The molecules in water are so strongly attracted to one another that they form a kind of skin, called surface tension, over the water. If you add a certain agent to water, you can weaken that attraction and then create buoyant globules with...