Current Science, a Weekly Reader publication articles from January 2008

Current Science, a Weekly Reader publication archives from January 2008

Sci-triv game: have fun learning about science!(Brief article)
January 4, 2008... Want to play a game of science trivia? See how many points you can win by correctly identifying the symbol or abbreviation in each square. To find your score, give yourself 10 points each time you get the first-row symbol right, 20 points for...

Who knew.(Brief article)
January 4, 2008... STEPHENS CITY, Va. -- Last summer, Jimmy Martin rescued a homeless kitten from the middle of a road. He brought her home and tried to feed the little orphan, which he named Precious, but she refused to drink from a bottle. There seemed to...

Meltdown: Arctic ice is disappearing faster than expected, accelerating global warming.(EARTH)
January 4, 2008... Don't let the name fool you. Greenland is hardly the lush oasis that its name implies. It looks more like the barren ice world of Hoth from Star Wars, with more than 1.7 million square kilometers (660,000 square miles) of Arctic ice covering...

Big dopes: athletes who take performance-enhancing drugs risk their reputations and their health.(HEALTH)
January 4, 2008... [ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED] Floyd Landis made history in 2006 when he came in first in the Tour de France, the most elite race in professional cycling. Unfortunately, he will go down in posterity not as a winner but as a cheater. Soon after...

Science is golden: The Golden Compass is fiction. The truth may be even stranger.(PHYSICAL)
January 4, 2008... [ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED] If you've read the book or seen the movie, you know the story of The Golden Compass: Eleven-year-old Lyra Belacqua embarks on a journey to the far North, accompanied by her daemon, a shape-shifting animal...

Sonic sight: blind people can use echoes the way bats and dolphins do to navigate the world.(LIFE)
January 4, 2008... [ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED] Check out Ben Underwood sailing down the street on in-line skates, dodging cars and turning figure eights. No big deal for a 15-year-old, fight? Look again. Ben, a student at Sheldon High School in Sacramento,...

Ozone treaty strengthened.(earth)
January 4, 2008... MONTREAL -- Environmentalists met here in September to mark a major anniversary and share good news. Twenty years ago, in the same city, more than 200 countries signed the landmark Montreal Protocol, a treaty that protects the ozone layer. ...

This snow doughnut was photographed in the Cascade Mountains of Washington state.(insight)(Photograph)
January 4, 2008... This snow doughnut was photographed in the Cascade Mountains of Washington state. A snow doughnut forms when a clump of snow falls off a tree or a c lift and tumbles downhill. As the clump rolls, it gathers more snow and its center drops out,...

Plants make big stink.(too weird)
January 4, 2008... [ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED] BRISBANE FOREST PARK, Australia -- The Australian cycad plant is like a dude who douses himself in too much AXE. It's a real turn off. Cycads are gymnosperms--cone-bearing plants--and morn than 300 species...

Atoms to store computer data?(technology)
January 4, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Today's MP3 players can store thousands of songs. Tomorrow's might store millions. Researchers at the IBM Corporation have made discoveries at the atomic and molecular level that could...

Nothing found in outer space.(space)
January 4, 2008... MINNEAPOLIS -- This is a story about nothing. A team of astronomers at the University of Minnesota has located what appears to be a humongous hole in the universe. The hole should not be confused with a hole, a region of extremely dense...

Crow cams: spy on wild birds.(life)
January 4, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] NEW CALEDONIA -- Betty the crow amazed scientists at Oxford University several years ago when she demonstrated tool-making skills never seen before in a bird. Now scientists from the same university have observed...

Bend your mind.(OPTRICKS: Brain Teasers From Current Science.)(Brief article)
January 4, 2008... A small weight dangles from a thread attached to the cork in an empty wine bottle. The cork has been sealed to the bottle with wax. How can the thread be cut without breaking the seal or shaking the bottle? [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ...

Whatizit?(OPTRICKS: Brain Teasers From Current Science.)
January 4, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] These might look like plugs on a circuit board. They're really spigots on a spiny-backed spider. What might the spigots be secreting? Answer silk fibers from a spider's spinnerets

Mystery photos.(OPTRICKS: Brain Teasers From Current Science.)
January 4, 2008... [ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED] Mystery photos: Morgan Orth/St. Mary School, Alexandria, Ky. (3); Whatizit: Dennis Microscopy Inc.; Background: Shutterstock Answer Top: soccer ball, Middle: saw, Bottom: metal nozzle of a hose used to fill...

Arctic melting.(HANDS-ON ACTIVITY)
January 4, 2008... Global warming is melting the sea ice in the Arctic Ocean and the ice sheet on Greenland. How will meltwater from the Arctic sea ice and the Greenland ice sheet affect sea level? To find out, try this demonstration: What you Need * 2...

Sci-triv game: have fun learning about science!
January 18, 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,...

Witham, England--Daisy, a miniature dachshund, was walking on the beach with owner Dennis Smith when she sniffed a dachshund-sized bone sticking from the sand.(ANIMAL SPOTS)(Brief article)
January 18, 2008... WITHAM, England -- Daisy, a miniature dachshund, was walking on the beach with owner Dennis Smith when she sniffed a dachshund-sized bone sticking from the sand. It turns out the 3.6-kilogram (8-pound) bone belonged to a mammoth that lived as...

Muncie, Ind.--Peanut the pet parrot helped save a man and his son from a house fire by imitating the sound of a smoke alarm.(ANIMAL SPOTS)(Brief article)
January 18, 2008... MUNCIE, Ind. -- Peanut the pet parrot helped save a man and his son from a house fire by imitating the sound of a smoke alarm. The man, Shannon Conwell, and his son had fallen asleep while watching a late movie. They awoke in the middle of the...

Colchester, England--the exasperated owner of a tortoise sanctuary here has outfitted her 60 charges with electronic tracking devices.(ANIMAL SPOTS)(Brief article)
January 18, 2008... COLCHESTER, England -- The exasperated owner of a tortoise sanctuary here has outfitted her 60 charges with electronic tracking devices. "Contrary to popular belief, tortoises can actually move quite fast," Jane Williams, who runs the sanctuary...

What a hoot: biologists in Maine are calling owls on cell phones--and the owls are calling back!(LIFE)
January 18, 2008... In a quiet corner of a Maine forest, a cell phone tings at midnight. Who could be calling such a place at that time of night? Actually, the question isn't who--it's hoo! There's a new call of the wild in Maine. Wildlife researchers are...

The beat goes on: Matt Keene wants more schools to have the kind of device that saved his life.(HEALTH)
January 18, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] One fall day in 2006, 17-year-old Matt Keene's heart stopped without warning. He had just finished football practice and was having trouble breathing. "I dropped to the ground. At first [my teammates] thought I was...

Failing grades: why have U.S. engineering given the country's roads and bridges a bad report card?(PHYSICAL)(Table)
January 18, 2008... Last July, a huge explosion rocked the neighborhood south of Grand Central Terminal in New York City. "The roar was deafening," recalls one resident, who witnessed the enormous, debris-filled cloud and the stampede of terrified pedestrians. "I...

Source of wonder: Saturn's little moon Enceladus should be a cold, inactive world. So why is it spouting like Old Faithful?(EARTH)
January 18, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In the frigid outer realms of the solar system, a ball of ice called Enceladus orbits the ringed planet Saturn. Enceladus ought to be as cold and dead as Saturn's other icy moons, whose ancient, cratered landscapes...

Disaster inspires inventor.(technology)(Brief article)
January 18, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -- Shawn Frayne, 28, was in middle school when he learned about the legendary failure of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in 1940. The newly built suspension bridge, which spanned a strait in...

Telescope taking long-distance calls.(Space)
January 18, 2008... HAT CREEK, Calif. -- Paul Allen got hooked on astronomy in childhood after reading Robert Heinlein's Rocket Ship Galileo, a novel about three teenagers who fly a spaceship to the moon and find evidence of an extinct civilization there. Though...

Axel Erlandson (1884-1964), a U.S. arborist (tree surgeon), created this "basket tree" by planting six sycamores in a circle.(insight)(Brief article)
January 18, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Axel Erlandson (1884-1964), a U.S. arborist (tree surgeon), created this "basket tree" by planting six sycamores in a circle. Over the years, he pruned, bent, and grafted the trees to form the diamond patterns.

Setback for cane toads.(life)
January 18, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Sydney, Australia--For many Australians, the invasion of cane toads has been a big pain in the neck. For the toads, it's become a pain in the back. Cane toads were imported to northern Australia in 1935 to...

Ask Professor Ossolotch.(DISCOVERIES: News Briefs From Current Science[R])
January 18, 2008... Do vaccines cause autism? David Harper, New York, N.Y. Thousands of parents have filed lawsuits against the U.S. government The parents claim that vaccines have caused their children's autism. Autism is a brain disorder that impairs a...

Earth exhales oxygen.(earth)(Brief article)
January 18, 2008... BONN, Germany -- Earth's atmosphere is a vast reservoir of oxygen. So is the planet itself, says a team of German scientists. Without its deep storehouse of oxygen, Earth might be a dry, inhospitable world. The German scientists have been...

Bend your mind.(OPTRICKS: Brain Teasers From Current Science[R])(Brief article)
January 18, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Fold a piece of paper in two, and draw an arrow on one side. Stand the paper on a table so that you can see it through a drinking glass. Without moving the card or the glass, how can you reverse the arrow's...

Whatizit?(OPTRICKS: Brain Teasers From Current Science[R])(Brief article)
January 18, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] This is a close-up of a structure you'll find on. the subjects of an article in this issue. The main shaft at left is called the barbs, and the branches extending front it are the barbs. What might it be? Answer...

Mystery photos.(OPTRICKS: Brain Teasers From Current Science[R])(Brief article)
January 18, 2008... [ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED] Mystery photos from top: Kristina Korte/SS. Peter & Paul School, Boonville, Mo.; Mark Polke/Homer Glen II; Shutterstock; Whatizit: Dennis Kunkel Microscopy, Inc; Background: Shutterstock Answer Top: the...

Mathletics.([5.sup.2]: MATHCOUNTS 25TH ANNIVERSARY)(Brief article)
January 18, 2008... You can't solve a problem if you don't know how to solve a problem. Celebrate the 25th anniversary of MATHCOUNTS[R], a national math enrichment, coaching, and competition program that promotes middle school mathematics achievement in every U.S....

Discoveries.(SKILLBUILDERS)(Brief article)
January 18, 2008... Fill in the Blanks Find the word that best completes each sentence. Write the word in the space. 1. Exploding stars are called --. 2. The -- is the layer of Earth that lies between the crust and the core. 3. -- is a brain...