Current Science, a Weekly Reader publication articles from March 2008

Current Science, a Weekly Reader publication archives from March 2008

Sci-triv game: have fun learning about science!
March 7, 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,...

Who knew?(Brief article)
March 7, 2008... How often have you heard that physical exercise makes people feel good--that it gives them a "runner's high"--because it sends a rush of endorphins into the brain? An endorphin is a hormone-like chemical produced by the pituitary gland that...

Cold case: did chilling his injured body save NFL player Kevin Everett from paralysis?(HEALTH)(National Football League)
March 7, 2008... One moment, Buffalo Bills tight end Kevin Everett was smashing into Denver Broncos wide receiver Domenik Hixon. The next moment, Everett was on the ground, unable to get up, his body numb. Everett had suffered a serious blow to his spinal...

Over the moonbow: a U.S. astronomer devises a formula for finding nighttime rainbows in Yosemite National Park.(EARTH)(Olson, Don)
March 7, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] One moonlit night about a century ago, naturalist John Muir watched as a luminous arc appeared in the spray over Lower Yosemite Fall in California. In subsequent years, Muir saw more of the arcs, which he described...

Winter's tail: a rescued dolphin is back in the swim with an artificial tail.(LIFE)
March 7, 2008... [ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED] In December 2005, a Florida fisherman discovered a 3-month-old female bottlenose dolphin tangled in the ropes of a crab net near Cape Canaveral. Fighting to free herself, the little dolphin had sustained serious...

Mind game: imagine controlling a video game with your thoughts!(PHYSICAL)
March 7, 2008... [ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED] It's a Wednesday afternoon in San Jose, Calif., and I'm doing something I never expected to do today or any day. I'm levitating a desk with my mind. OK, so it's not a real desk. It's a desk in a video game. But...

Stool therapy saves lives.(too weird)
March 7, 2008... CALGARY, Alberta--One day you may be asked to donate a kidney or part of a liver to save the life of a loved one. you may even be asked to donate feces! A new type of medical treatment cures a life-threatening infection with donated human...

Georgia County was oasis in drought.(earth)(Brief article)
March 7, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ATLANTA -- Most residents of the U.S. Southeast will remember 2007 as the driest year in their lifetimes. But those living in Clayton County in suburban Atlanta barely registered the harsh weather. What spared them...

Insight.(DISCOVERIES: News Briefs From Current Science[R])(Brief article)
March 7, 2008... Storms off the coast of southeastern Australia whipped 48 kilometers (30 miles) of ocean into what looked like an enormous bubble bath last year. Children romped in the harmless sea foam, which scientists say was created when storm-driven ocean...

Why winter is flu season.(health)(Brief article)
March 7, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] NEW YORK -- Have you ever wondered why winter is flu season-why people never seem to catch the disease in July and August? A group of microbiologists at New York's Mount Sinai School of Medicine says it has found the...

Evidence of another universe found?(update)(Brief article)
March 7, 2008... CHAPEL HILL, N.C. -- Two months ago, Current Science reported that astronomers had located a humongous hole in the universe ("Nothing Found in Space," issue 9). About 95 percent of the universe is made up of small voids, or regions of emptiness...

Turtle on brink of extinction.(life)
March 7, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] CHANGSHA, China -- For more than five decades, a big female turtle has enjoyed the good life of a minor celebrity, first as an attraction in a traveling circus, then as a resident at a zoo in the city of Changsha....

Whatizit?(Optricks)(Brief article)
March 7, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] This is an enlarged, cross-sectional view of a structure that measures slightly more than 40 centimeters (16 inches)in length in an adult human. The cross section was not made to the structure in a living person. Any...

Bend your mind.(Optricks)(Brief article)
March 7, 2008... This is a visual illusion. What is so illusive about it? [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The red circles are perfectly aligned in a vertical column. The zigzagging black lines make the circles appear as if they are not aligned.

Mystery photos.(Optricks)
March 7, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Top: fluorescent light-bulb Middle: cat's ear Bottom: cheese grater

Discoveries.(SKILLBUILDERS)(Brief article)
March 7, 2008... Fill in the Blanks Find the word or number that best completes each sentence. Write the word or number in the blank. 1. --theory holds that extremely tiny loops of energy are the fundamental building blocks of matter. 2....

Word search.(SKILLBUILDERS)(Brief article)
March 7, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] 1. a group of animals that includes mites (9) 2. a rainbow lit by moonlight (7) 3. a drug that treats a bacterial infection (10) 4. a city in China (8) 5. a type of brain wave associated with...

Sci-triv game: have fun learning about science!
March 28, 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,...

Who knew?(Brief article)
March 28, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] BEIJING -- Thirteen years ago, Peng Shuilin lost the lower half of his body when he was hit by a freight truck. Doctors could not save even his pelvis, the basin-shaped ring of bones that supports the abdominal...

Fire fight: why are wildfires so frequent in California--and can they be stopped?(EARTH)(Cover story)
March 28, 2008... [ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED] Steve Matthews knows the science of fire. He teaches thermodynamics--the relationship of heat to other forms of energy--at Merritt College in Oakland, Calif. And 17 years ago, he lost everything he owned in a...

Cool pools: today's swimming pools are works of art and science.(PHYSICAL)
March 28, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] If you're looking for a gross biology experiment to conduct during your summer vacation and you have access to a swimming pool, try this: Don't treat the water in the pool. In a matter of days, you'll have a breeding...

Safe havens? after a tiger attack, activists question whether zoos are the right place for tigers--or any other wild animal.(LIFE)
March 28, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] As the last visitors were being ushered out of the San Francisco Zoo on Christmas Day in 2007, Tatiana, a 160-kilogram (350-pound) Siberian tiger, jumped over the wall of her enclosure. She attacked three young men...

Out of the bag: a Colorado man's ill-fated fondness for microwave popcorn is one more chapter in a tragic story.(HEALTH)
March 28, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Wayne Watson first suspected that something was wrong with his lungs about four years ago when he grew short of breath during church choir practice. "I couldn't sustain my notes like I used to be able to," the...

Psychic sleuths bungle cases.(life)(Haunting Evidence)(Television program review)
March 28, 2008... AMHERST, N.Y. -- Sometimes it pays to be really lousy at your job. You might get a TV series out of it. In 2006, Haunting Evidence, a reality series about three psychic detectives--Carla Baron, Patrick Burns, and John J. Oliver--debuted on...

Trees killed with kindness.(too weird)(Brief article)
March 28, 2008... NANYUKI, Kenya -- Todd Palmer made a puzzling observation when he strolled by a stand of acacia trees in the Mpala Research Centre on the grasslands of central Kenya. The trees, which had been fenced in to keep giraffes and elephants from...

Ask professor Ossolotch.(DISCOVERIES: News Briefs From Current Science[R])(Brief article)
March 28, 2008... What is the appendix, and what does it do? Kim Relick, New York, N.Y. Dear Kim, I assume you're referring to the vermiform appendix. The body has more than half a dozen structures with the name appendix. For example, the right...

Autism epidemic a myth?(health)
March 28, 2008... ATLANTA -- One in 166." You might have encountered that statistic recently on TV or in a magazine article. It's the proportion of children in the United States said to have autism. One in 166 is an extraordinary claim. For decades,...

New blades are hot stuff.(technology)
March 28, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] CALGARY, Alberta -- One cold February evening in 1985, college student and part-time lumberyard worker Tory Weber dashed out-doors to fetch the newspaper. He slapped on his sneakers, which had been sitting on a heat...

Not to be confused with Vincent van Gogh's "The Starry Night," this is "Starry Night," a work of bug art--art created by arachnids and insects.(insight)
March 28, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Not to be confused with Vincent van Gogh's "The Starry Night," this is "Starry Night," a work of bug art--art created by arachnids and insects. Bug wrangler Steven Kutcher, who trains creepy crawlies for Hollywood...

Mystery photos.(OPTRICKS: Brain Teasers From Current Science[R])
March 28, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Top: level; Middle: clock; Bottom: candle

Whatizit?(OPTRICKS: Brain Teasers From Current Science[R])(Brief article)
March 28, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] What looks to be a wasp's nest is actually the expanded grain of a plant that grows throughout the United States. Heat has been applied to the grain, cooking its starch content and vaporizing the water in it. The...

Bend your mind.(OPTRICKS: Brain Teasers From Current Science[R])(Brief article)
March 28, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] These two conical glasses contain the same amount of blue liquid. Can the entire contents of one be poured into the second glass without any overflow in the sec glass? Explain your answer. All of the liquid in...

Discoveries.(SKILLBUILDERS)(Brief article)
March 28, 2008... Fill in the Blanks Write the word or words that best complete each sentence. 1. -- is an interaction between two species that is beneficial to both of them. 2. A -- structure no longer serves the purpose that it once did thousands...

An electric reaction: the article "Cool Pools" describes how some pool makers use table salt and electricity to produce chlorine for pools. To do that, they use a process called electrolysis. Here is a quick and easy demonstration of that process.(HANDS-ON ACTIVITY)
March 28, 2008... What You Need * a beaker or a plastic cup * water * a teaspoon * salt * a 9-volt battery * aluminum foil * turmeric (a spice) What to Do 1. Fill the beaker about two-thirds full with water. 2. Add...