Current Science, a Weekly Reader publication articles from March 2007

Current Science, a Weekly Reader publication archives from March 2007

Sci-doku game: have fun learning about science!
March 2, 2007... 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 contain the numerals 1...

Animal spots.(Brief article)
March 2, 2007... A schoolteacher who lives in Howard Springs, Australia, found a 2.1-meter (7-foot) python in her toilet The python had been living in the septic tank and had traveled up a pipe leading to the toilet Its body was too fat to squeeze all the way...

Food fright: why did several Americans die after eating spinach last year? Is our food unsafe?(HEALTH)
March 2, 2007... One day late last summer, 2-year-old Kyle Allgood drank a smoothie blended with fresh spinach. Soon after, he developed bloody diarrhea and became seriously ill. Five days later, the toddler from Chubbuck, Idaho, died of cardiac arrest (a heart...

Hog heaven: why are wild pigs hogging more countryside?(LIFE)
March 2, 2007... John Mayer looked up at his friend John Reiner perched high in a cabbage palmetto tree. The two men were on Ossabaw Island, off the coast of Georgia, looking for wild pigs to photograph. But one of the pigs had spotted Reiner first and chased...

Super snaps: a new camera takes huge, hyper-detailed photos.(PHYSICAL)
March 2, 2007... Several years ago, on a trip to Colorado, artist Clifford Ross fell in love with a mountain. "I saw Mount Sopris," he says, "and I just thought, Wow!" Ross took a few snapshots of the mountain and taped them together to form a panorama....

Climate control: why does a Novel Prize winner want to pollute the atmosphere?(EARTH)
March 2, 2007... Last summer, a Nobel Prize winner in chemistry made, a startling suggestion: Let s pollute the atmosphere. The chemist, Paul Crutzen, thinks the world's nations should fill the air with thousands of tons of the particles that cause acid...

Techno-fashion dazzles Paris.(technology)
March 2, 2007... PARIS -- If you think some of the fashions on Project Runway are outlandish, you should have been in Paris last October for the unveiling of the spring-summer collections. There, London designer Hussein Chalayan wowed the crowd with a parade of...

Teen daredevil felt no pain.(health)(Brief article)
March 2, 2007... LAHORE, Pakistan -- The tale of a teenage boy who could walk on hot coals and pass knives through his arms without feeling pain has led doctors to a major genetic discovery. Geoffrey Woods, a British physician, first heard about the boy on...

Black hole gobbles star.(space)(Brief article)
March 2, 2007... PASADENA, Calif. -- Like George Costanza sneaking an eclair from a garbage can, a black hole has been caught in the act. But instead of eating a pastry, the black hole was spotted wolfing down a star. The event was observed by the Galaxy...

Moths mimic their foes.(life)(Brief article)
March 2, 2007... STORRS, Conn. -- You've probably heard the expression "a wolf in sheep's clothing." Now a U.S. scientist has found the reverse: a sheep in wolf's clothing. Not long ago, Jadranka Rota, a lepidopterist (a scientist who studies moths and...

'Lost' tsunami found.(earth)(Brief article)
March 2, 2007... PISA, Italy -- Twenty years ago, archaeologists digging in Israel found the remains of a Neolithic (late Stone Age) fishing village. Some of the artifacts indicated that the village was suddenly evacuated about 8,000 years ago. A team of...

'Frybrid' runs on Grease.(physical)(Brief article)
March 2, 2007... WEST SAND LAKE, N.Y. -- The hybrid is the hottest car on the market today. But how long will that be the case now that the "Frybrid" has hit the road? In December 2005, Current Science ran the feature "Grease Is the Word." It described how...

Bend your mind.(OPTRICKS)(Brief article)
March 2, 2007... A toad falls to the bottom of a 20-meter well. To get out of the well, the toad hops 3 meters up the slimy wall. But while resting at night, the toad slips back 2 meters. At that rate, how many days will it take the toad to escape from the...

Whatizit?(OPTRICKS)(Brief article)
March 2, 2007... These "spines" are filamentous outgrowths of keratin emerging from the part of the epidermis that scientists call the ergotrid. What are they? Answers hair on an upper lip

Mystery photos.(OPTRICKS)
March 2, 2007... [ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED] Answers Top: cactus, Middle: tinfoil, Bottom: pinecone

Discoveries.(Brief article)
March 2, 2007... Fill in the Blanks Find the word or words that best complete each sentence. Write the words in the blanks. 1. The -- of a black hole is so strong that even light cannot escape. 2. A change in a gene is called a --. 3. About...

Sci-triv game.( )
March 16, 2007... 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, 20...

Who knew?(Patrick Blanc invents vertical garden)
March 16, 2007... PARIS -- As a teenager, Patrick Blanc was fascinated by the idea of growing plants without soil. He traveled to the jungles of Asia, where he observed plants living on rocks, on tree trunks, and under waterfalls. Blanc later invented the...

Range rovers.(PHYSICAL)(hummingbirds)
March 16, 2007... A splash of tropical color flickering among the branches of a snow-dusted apple tree catches your eye. What is it? A Christmas ornament blowing in the wind? You look more closely and spy an elf-sized bird, its wings a blur, darting from...

Water world? New satellite pictures hint that water flows on Mars.(EARTH)
March 16, 2007... In the early 1900s, astronomer Percival Lowell thought Martians were real. His evidence? Dark lines on the planet seen through his telescope in Flagstaff, Ariz. The lines, Lowell believed, were canals. In his book Mars As the Abode of Life,...

New blood: could a blood substitute help the thousands of Americans who suffer traumatic brain injuries?(HEALTH)(oocytes)
March 16, 2007... Jason Poole joined the Marines after graduating from high school in 2000. His first tour of duty sent him to Hawaii, Australia, and Thailand--"all the nice places," he says. Poole was still enlisted in March 2003, when the United States...

Spy case: what strange poison was used to murder a former Soviet spy?(HEALTH/PHYSICAL)(Alexander Litvinenko was killed with polonium-210 )
March 16, 2007... In the beginning of November, Alexander Litvinenko checked into a London hospital. He was vomiting and complaining of stomach pains. Litvinenko, 43, a former Soviet spy and a harsh critic of the Russian government, had been well just a few days...

New Island appears.(earth)(in Tonga)
March 16, 2007... TONGA -- Sailors have a superstition: Never leave on a Friday. Last summer, Fredrik Fransson ignored that warning when he sailed his yacht Maiken into the Pacific Ocean on a Friday. And what happened? "The sea turned to stone," says Fransson....

Cell phones cut the cord?(physical)(wireless charging for electronic gadgets )
March 16, 2007... CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Like many other people, Marin Soljacic often forgets to recharge his cell phone. Soljacic's phone beeps when it needs more power. "Needless to say, this always happens in the middle of the night," he says. "So, one night at...

Moth sucks bird tears.(too weird )(Hemiceratoides hieroglyphica)
March 16, 2007... GOTTINGEN, Germany -- Tears have several important functions. In all land animals, they clean and lubricate the eyes. And in some places, they are also a source of nutrition. A German scientist has discovered that a moth on the island of...

Napoleon died of cancer.(health)(Napoleon Bonaparte)
March 16, 2007... DALLAS -- What killed French ruler Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821)? Most historians accept the diagnosis of Napoleon's personal physician: stomach cancer. But subsequent studies have cast doubt on that judgment. One U.S. researcher recently...

Pigs fingered in Food Fright.(update)(wild pigs responsible for food infection )
March 16, 2007... SAN BENITO VALLEY, Calif. -- In issue 12, Current Science ran features on the spread of wild pigs across the United States ("Hog Heaven") and the nationwide outbreak of food poisoning last summer ("Food Fright"). California authorities now...

Church attacks pollution.(physical)(Jubilee Church, titanium dioxide fights air pollution)
March 16, 2007... ROME -- More than three years after it opened, the Jubilee Church in suburban Rome looks as good as new. Some might call its still-pristine condition a miracle, but the true cause is a material that cleans both itself and the air around it. ...

Tim Knowles, a British artist, attached a pen to the branch of this pine tree on the coast of Greece.(insight)
March 16, 2007... Tim Knowles, a British artist, attached a pen to the branch of this pine tree on the coast of Greece. Then, placing a canvas in front of the tree, he let the gentle hand of a sea breeze guide the branch and dictate the pen-strokes to create a...

Bend your mind.(CURRENT SCIENCE[R] OPTRICKS)
March 16, 2007... This triangle is 4 centimeters high. Without measuring, estimate how high the red dot is. Then use a ruler to check your estimate. 2 centimeters

Whatizit?(CURRENT SCIENCE[R] OPTRICKS )(Georges de Mestral invents hook-and-loop material)
March 16, 2007... Georges de Mestral, a Swiss engineer, invented the hook-and-loop material shown in this close-up photo after he took a detailed look at the burdock seeds that kept sticking to his dog's fur on their daily walk. Velcro

Mystery photos.(CURRENT SCIENCE[R] OPTRICKS)
March 16, 2007... Top: train tracks Middle: streetlight Bottom: door hinge