Current Science, a Weekly Reader publication articles from May 2007

Current Science, a Weekly Reader publication archives from May 2007

Sci-triv game: have fun learning about science!
May 4, 2007... 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 points for each second question,...

Who knew?(Bella, a dog dives under the water)
May 4, 2007... LYME REGIS, England -- Bella is making a big splash. The 2-year-old springer spaniel has gone way beyond dog-paddling. She puts on diving shows, staying underwater for as long as 15 seconds. Bella's favorite game is fetching stones that her...

Ramp it up: elite skateboarders take flight on a towering ramp. How much higher can they go?(PHYSICAL)
May 4, 2007... Critical Thinking * List some everyday experiences in which your body feels g-forces greater than the force of gravity. (upon landing after jumping, when plopping down in a chair, when an elevator starts" moving up) * How would the...

Second opinion: many Americans have been told by doctors that they have chronic Lyme disease, a condition that some other physicians say doesn't exist.(HEALTH)
May 4, 2007... Critical Thinking * Name some other tick-borne diseases. (Rocky Mountain spotted fever, tularemia, ehrlichiosis) * Which side do you favor in the chronic Lyme debate? Explain your answer. * If you or a friend developed what seemed...

Back to Eden: Iraq's great marshlands, almost bled dry by Saddam Hussein, are making a comeback.(EARTH/LIFE)
May 4, 2007... Critical Thinking * Name some famous wetlands in the United States. (Florida Everglades, Louisiana bayou) * Describe original solutions for rehabilitating the Iraqi marshes and protecting them from degradation. National Science...

Honeybee colonies collapsing.(life)
May 4, 2007... LITTLE CREEK, Del. -- Beekeeper Warren Seaver got a rude jolt in February. Checking one of his hives, he discovered that the honeybees had buzzed off practically overnight. The missing bees were nowhere to be found. Seaver is far from...

'Fossil' lightning illuminates history.(earth)(petrified lightning)
May 4, 2007... MEXICO CITY -- Most lightning lasts for no more than a split second. But one type persists for hundreds, or even thousands, of years. A geologist in Mexico has studied it for clues to Earth's history. When lightning strikes sandy ground,...

Is there a face on Mars?(Ask Professor Ossolotch)
May 4, 2007... Dear Kathy, You must be referring to the famous picture (above) taken in 1976 by the Viking 1 spacecraft. The image shows a landform in the Cydonia Mensae region of Mars that looks like a human head. The picture caused a small uproar. Some...

Caterpillar vomits to gross out enemies.(too weird)
May 4, 2007... OTTAWA -- Curiosity didn't kill Deat the cat, but it taught her a lesson she can't forget. Deat belongs to Jayne Yack, a biologist at Carleton University who studies acoustic (sound) communication in insects. One weekend, Yack brought a bin of...

'Cheshire Cat' grins at party.(earth)(circumzenithal arc)
May 4, 2007... CONCORD, Calif. -- Andrew Saffas was throwing a big family party one Saturday afternoon in January, when he stepped outdoors for a breath of fresh air. Looking up, he saw a beautiful, multicolored arch in the sky. It looked just like a rainbow...

'Green' house grown from seeds.(technology)(Fab Tree Hab designed by Mitchell Joachim)
May 4, 2007... CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Tree houses are no longer just for kids. A team of U.S. architects and engineers has drawn up plans for the Fab Tree Hab (illustration above), a two-story house cultivated entirely from living trees and vines. "The...

A smile in the sky.(rainbow)
May 4, 2007... When sunlight hits a haze of six-sided ice crystals floating high in the sky, each crystal bends the light and breaks it into the colors of the spectrum. From the ground, the combined effect looks like an upside-down rainbow and is called a...

And the winners are ...(Optricks)(Kim Allen wins photography contest)
May 4, 2007... Current Science congratulates this year's winners of the magazine's annual Mystery Photo Contest: Kim Allen and her students at Augusta Preparatory Day School in Martinez, Ga.. The students (pictured left to right) are Yan Zheng, Olivia Lee,...

Mystery photos.(Optricks)
May 4, 2007... From top: Garrett Terris/Augusta Preparatory Day School, Martinez, Ga.: Sarah Sussman/Augusta Preparatory Day School, Martinez, Ga; Yan Zheng/Augusta Preparatory Day School, Martinez, Ga; Whatizit: Raul Gonzalez Perez/Photo Researchers, Inc.;...

Whatizit?(Optricks)
May 4, 2007... The British Romantic poet William Blake said you could See a world in one of these. Examining it with a microscope, a mineralogist would detect quartz (silicon dioxide) colored by some impurities. ANSWER Whatizit? grains of sand

Fill in the blanks.(SKILLBUILDERS)
May 4, 2007... Write the word or words that best complete each sentence. 1. A fulgurite is a long glass tube formed when--hits sandy ground. 2. Pleaching is a method of weaving--together. 3. A prism--sunlight, breaking the light into a spectrum....