Current Science, a Weekly Reader publication articles from February 2008

Current Science, a Weekly Reader publication archives from February 2008

Sci-doku trivia game: have fun learning about science!
February 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Sci-doku is Current Science's version of Sudoku, the popular number puzzle from Japan. Sci-doku is easy to play. The goal is to find the numerals that go in the 25 squares in the grid so that all rows and columns...

Vernon Township, N.J.--residents of northern New Jersey are keeping their eyes open for a hirsute car thief.(ANIMAL SPOTS)
February 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] VERNON TOWNSHIP, N.J. -- Residents of northern New Jersey are keeping their eyes open for a hirsute car thief. In November, police discovered an abandoned car, its interior covered in hair, by the side of a road. The...

Liverpool, England--George is truly a fat cat.(ANIMAL SPOTS)
February 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] LIVERPOOL, England -- George is truly a fat cat. With a waistline of 63 centimeters (25 inches), George qualified for a nationwide competition for pudgy pets in Great Britain. The seven other entrants in the contest...

Guns control: the death of his wife launched Mark Contois on a crusade to make paintball safer.(PHYSICAL)
February 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED] What started as a drizzle was turning to a downpour. Wind peeling off the mountainside flew at the players in waves. Clouds darkened overhead. A storm was blowing in. It was time to end the day's paintball war. ...

Air repair: in Australia, greenhouse gases are going down under.(EARTH)(Table)
February 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Unless you've been hiding under a rock, you've heard about the problem of global warming. What you probably don't know is that the solution might be hiding in the very same place: under a rock. Australian...

Cancer cluster: why have so many children from Fallon, Nev., developed cancer?(HEALTH)
February 1, 2008... On September 1, 2001, Stephanie Sands lost a two-year battle with cancer. Sands, 21, died of acute lymphocytic leukemia, a cancer of the blood and bone marrow. Sands was living in Pennsylvania when she fell ill but had spent much of her...

Big dig: a herd of elephants mines an African volcano for a precious mineral.(LIFE)
February 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Moving in single file, a herd of elephants pads down a long, wide tunnel into the pitch darkness of Kitum Cave in Mount Elgon, an extinct volcano in Africa. Once inside the main cavern, the herd begins its business....

Broccoli guards against cancer.(health)
February 1, 2008... BALTIMORE -- How many times has your mother told you to "Eat your broccoli--it's good for you"? Just how good it is scientists at Johns Hopkins University are now discovering. They recently learned that a chemical extracted from broccoli can...

Police harpoon fleeing cars.(technology)
February 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. -- More than 100,000 high-speed police chases happen every year in the United States. At least 40 percent of them climax in crashes. Now a U.S. company has devised a system that keeps track of...

Mighty mouse bred.(too weird)
February 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] CLEVELAND -- U.S. scientists have bred a "Lance Armstrong" mouse. It can't pedal a bike, but it can run on a treadmill for more than six hours before pooping out. What accounts for the mouse's amazing endurance?...

Everyone can see just how fabulous a woman feels in a Bubelle dress.(insight)
February 1, 2008... Everyone can see just how fabulous a woman feels in a Bubelle dress. Made by Philips, the Dutch electronics company, the Bubelle has an inner garment lined with sensors that register changes in the body that accompany variations in the wearer's...

Ask Professor Ossolotch.(DISCOVERIES: News Briefs From Current Science[R])
February 1, 2008... What are energy vampires? Richard Kristoph, Merritt Island, Fla. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Dear Richard, When you turn off an appliance or electronic gadget, you don't necessarily turn it all the way off. It may lie there in...

Ferrets on the rebound.(life)
February 1, 2008... SELIGMAN, Ariz. -- Cows and horses aren't the only animals roaming the Diamond A Ranch in Arizona's Aubrey Valley these days. Take a flashlight with you any night and shine it into one of the small holes in the ground. You might find pairs of...

Bend your mind.(OPTRICKS: Brain Teasers From Current Science[R])
February 1, 2008... Which triangle best completes the analogy? [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Answer A

Whatizit.(OPTRICKS: Brain Teasers From Current Science[R])
February 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The red material in this artificially colored microphoto is cerumen, a natural substance that is normally yellowish in color. The blue strands are cotton fibers that are typically white. When you think you have an...

Mystery photos.(OPTRICKS: Brain Teasers From Current Science[R])
February 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED] Answer Top: human ear Middle: gas stove burner Bottom: colored drinking straws

Word search.(SKILLBUILDERS)
February 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] 1. a period in Earth's history (8) 2. a mood-sensitive dress (7) 3. a poisonous element (7) 4. a disease that kills black-footed ferrets (8, 6) 5. a country in Africa (5) 6. earwax (7) 7. a...

Capturing carbon.(HANDS-ON ACTIVITY)
February 1, 2008... Carbon dioxide (C[O.sub.2]) makes up only a very small part of the air around us--about 0.033 percent. For that reason, it's considered a trace gas. Still, its greenhouse effect on the planet makes Earth warm and habitable. Carbon dioxide...

Sci-triv game.
February 22, 2008... 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 a first-row question right, 20 points for each second-row question,...

South Littleton, England--Steve Tugwell gave the breath of life to Frodo, a springer spaniel that passed out when another dog grabbed Frodo's collar and pulled it tight, accidentally asphyxiating Frodo.(ANIMAL SPOTS)(Brief article)
February 22, 2008... SOUTH LITTLETON, England -- Steve Tugwell gave the breath of life to Frodo, a springer spaniel that passed out when another dog grabbed Frodo's collar and pulled it tight, accidentally asphyxiating Frodo. Tugwell picked up the unconscious dog...

Hampshire, England--Sometimes you just can't keep a fish down on the farm.(ANIMAL SPOTS)(Brief article)
February 22, 2008... HAMPSHIRE, England -- Sometimes you just can't keep a fish down on the farm. While visiting Hampshire Trout Farms in southern England, wildlife photographer Dennis Bright snapped a photo of brown trout leaping out of a pond into a stream of...

Into thin air: a U.S. scientist climbs mountains to study how people adapt to high-altitude living.(LIFE)
February 22, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] When Cynthia Beall first visited villagers who live high in the Andes mountains in South America, the children at the local school were afraid of her. They had heard stories of bloodsucking spirits who looked like...

Hot air? What do you do when your car's got nothing but air in the tank? If the car's a MiniCAT, floor it!(PHYSICAL)
February 22, 2008... [ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED] Drivers whose cars are low on gasoline often say they're "running on air." When oil prices hit a record high of $100 a barrel in January, many people probably wished their vehicles could run on air. Now, a...

Big bang: why do so few people know about the biggest volcanic eruption in history?(EARTH)
February 22, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The small island of Sumbawa in the Indian Ocean is home to Mount Tambora, one of the largest volcanoes in the world. In April 1815, Tambora blew its top in the biggest volcanic eruption in recorded history. The blast...

Self help: a young scientist is searching for the cure to the disease that could kill him.(HEALTH)
February 22, 2008... Thirty-year-old Jeff Carroll is fit and healthy, but he knows he won't stay that way forever. Carroll has seen the future. He has the gene for Huntington's disease, an incurable, fatal neurological (brain) disorder. Carroll doesn't have...

Monkeys run riot.(too weird)(Brief article)
February 22, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] NEW DELHI -- They're at it again. Two months ago, Current Science ran a story about monkeys--chacma baboons--tearing up a town in South Africa. Now word comes from India that monkeys, this time rhesus macaques, are...

Clay kills 'superbug'.(health)
February 22, 2008... NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- A wave of panic over a deadly "superbug" swept across the United States last fall. An article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, which reported that the illness caused by the superbug sickens 94,000...

Bike has infinite gears.(technology)
February 22, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] SAN DIEGO -- Which Americans are more forward thinking: cyclists or motorists? We might soon find out with the appearance of the NuVinci, a new type of transmission. A transmission is an apparatus that transmits...

Lava shoots the chute.(earth)
February 22, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] HILO, Hawaii -- Last July, a fissure (opening) on Kilauea, a volcano on the Big Island of Hawaii, began to erupt. Although 500,000 cubic meters (654,000 cubic yards) of lava have been pouring from the fissure each...

Iraq dam faces collapse.(physical)
February 22, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] MOSUL, Iraq -- Of all the threats that the people of Iraq now face, the direst may be a failure of the country's Mosul Dam. Called the "most dangerous dam in the world" by a 2006 U.S. government report, the dam is...

Is this a new art museum in Paris?(insight)(Brief article)
February 22, 2008... Is this a new art museum in Paris? No. It's a parking garage in Santa Monica, Calif. Though its lights give off a Rubik's cube of color, the garage is mainly green--most of its electricity is supplied by roof-mounted solar cells. ...

Whatizit?(OPTRICKS: Brain Teasers From Current Science[R])(Brief article)
February 22, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In late 2006, a satellite caught this view of a vast polar Storm system, with the south pole located at the very center. Each of the black spots in the system is itself a smaller storm. Scientists don't have...

Bend your mind.(OPTRICKS: Brain Teasers From Current Science[R]))(Brief article)
February 22, 2008... The red line on the left is 2 centimeters long. Guess how long the red line on the right is. Ld Now measure the right line. How close was your guess? Bend your Mind: The two lines are equal in length.

Mystery photos.(OPTRICKS: Brain Teasers From Current Science[R])
February 22, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Mystery Photos: Top: toothbrush Middle: escalators Bottom: pinecone

Discoveries.(SKILLBUILDERS)(Brief article)
February 22, 2008... Fill in the Blanks Write the word or words that best complete each sentence. 1. Each year the antibiotic-resistant "superbug" known as -- kills 19,000 Americans. 2. The U.S. government has spent millions trying to repair Iraq's...

Word search.(SKILL BUILDERS)(Brief article)
February 22, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] 1. a type of fish (5) 2. an area of the brain involved in motor control (7) 3. a type of baboon (6) 4. a soft mineral that dissolves in water (6) 5. contains tin (8) 6. a continent south of...

Oxygen content.(HANDS-ON ACTIVITY)
February 22, 2008... The page 4 feature, "Into Thin Air," describes the challenges of adapting to high altitudes, where the atmosphere contains significantly less oxygen than the atmosphere at lower altitudes does. To find out just how much oxygen is in the air,...

You are here! Earth and other points of interest in the Milky Way.
February 22, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] This is an illustration of the Milky Way, a swirling cluster of hundreds of billions of stars. One of them is our sun. From the viewpoint of Earth, the Milky Way is the great band of softly glowing light that...