Current Science, a Weekly Reader publication articles from September 2005

Current Science, a Weekly Reader publication archives from September 2005

Sci-triv game: have fun learning about science!
September 9, 2005... SCI-TRIV GAME Have fun learning about science! Want to play a game of science trivia? See how may points you can win by correctly answering the questions below. To find your score, give yourself 10 points each time you get the first...

Who knew?(starlings rob to build nests and the largest freshwater fishcatch )(Brief Article)
September 9, 2005... FREDERICKSBURG, Va. -- Bill Dougherty sells equipment to coin-operated car washes. Not long ago, he was called in to determine why a car wash here was coming up several hundred dollars short each week. When Dougherty installed a surveillance...

Pain, no gain: injuries are increasingly sidelining young athletes who are doing too much too soon.
September 9, 2005... In the spring of 2004, Taylor Torrence was a softball star. The seventh grader from Brandon, Miss., played on a tournament team that practiced six hours a week and competed for up to 12 hours every Saturday. She also belonged to a basketball...

Fool moon: U.S. researchers correct a lunar error to solve the ancient mystery of the first marathon run.
September 9, 2005... In 490 B.C.E., a trained runner raced about 26 miles from the plain of Marathon to the city of Athens in Greece. He had an urgent message for the Athenians. "We have defeated the Persians at Marathon!" he gasped when he arrived. "But now the...

Poop sleuth: genetic secrets buried in droppings could help explain why some giant mammals became extinct 11,000 years ago.
September 9, 2005... "Why did all the giant mammals die out?" asked biologist Hendrik Poinar. For an answer, he reached into a storage cabinet in his lab and brought out a perfectly preserved clump of ancient animal poop. Yuck! A giant ground sloth deposited...

Solar power tower: is a scheme to produce electricity in the Australian outback full of hot air?(EnviroMission)
September 9, 2005... Wentworth Shire is a dusty, barren stretch of red dirt in the Australian outback. The plants there use sunlight to make their own food, just as green plants everywhere do. But in a few years, a giant plant will rise from the ground and use...

Immune test clears warts.(Health)(therapeutic methods)
September 9, 2005... LITTLE ROCK, Ark. -- Doctors at the University of Arkansas have come up with a remarkable new remedy for warts. By treating one wart, they can often rid the body of all other warts--in some cases, hundreds of warts--at the same time. A...

Craft crashes into comet.(Brief Article)
September 9, 2005... PASADENA, Calif. -- First came Batman Begins, then War of the Worlds, then Fantastic Four. But the biggest smash hit of the summer was the collision between a NASA spacecraft and a comet 133 million kilometers (83 million miles) from Earth. The...

Flipper uses Tools.(Life)(bottlenose dolphins)(Brief Article)
September 9, 2005... SHARK BAY, Australia -- Scientists once thought that humans were the only species capable of using tools. They have since collected evidence that monkeys, chimps, and birds are tool users too. Now add to that list bottlenose dolphins. In a...

Whoa! Are we entering the Matrix?(Technology)(patent for device that targets the brain to create artificial sensory experiences to Sony Corporation )(Brief Article)
September 9, 2005... "What is real? How do you define real? If you're talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, what you can taste and see, then real is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain."--Morpheus, The Matrix SAN DIEGO -- The...

Teen solves geometry puzzle.(Math)(Daniel Bezdek)(Brief Article)
September 9, 2005... CALGARY, Alberta -- A junior high school student in Canada has solved a geometry problem that has vexed mathematicians for 500 years. The solution has won the student, Daniel Bezdek, five science fair awards and $8,000. The problem was...

Mystery photos.(Optricks)
September 9, 2005... Mystery Photos Top: metal door catch Middle: nail clipper Bottom: towel rack

Bend your mind.(Optricks)
September 9, 2005... * How could you use a four-minute sand timer and a three-minute sand timer to determine when five minutes have passed? Answer: Bend Your Mind: Turn both timers over and start the sand running in each one at the same time. When the...

Whatizit.(Optricks)
September 9, 2005... Pictured above is an array of heliostats. They are constantly on the move, tracking and concentrating one form of energy to help generate another. What might the prefix heli- mean? Whatizit? The prefix heli- means sun. A heliostat tracks...

Sci-triv game.
September 23, 2005... SCI-TRIV GAME 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...

JOHANNESBURG, Calif.--Why did the chicken cross the road in a small mining town Saturday, March 24?(California)(Brief Article)
September 23, 2005... JOHANNESBURG, Calif. -- Why did the chicken cross the road in a small mining town Saturday, March 24? Deputy Sheriff J. Nicholson neglected to ask, but he fined the bird's owners $54 for violating a law that restricts livestock on state...

SA KAEW, Thailand--Two dwarf Brahman cattle said "I moo" in front of 2,000 guests in a traditional Thai wedding ceremony in July.(Brief Article)
September 23, 2005... SA KAEW, Thailand--Two dwarf Brahman cattle said "I moo" in front of 2,000 guests in a traditional Thai wedding ceremony in July. Farmer Amphol Wangboon gave away his beloved 18-month-old cow, Thong Khaow, in marriage after being offered a...

Sweet truth: the secret life of honeybees.
September 23, 2005... When Europeans first settled the Colonies, they brought with them a creature that the Native Americans had never seen before. The natives called it the "white man's fly"; the Europeans knew It as the honeybee. Bees of many kinds already existed...

Big shot: did a mega blast in the past bump off the dinosaurs? CS reports on a radical new idea.
September 23, 2005... Five times in its history, life on Earth has undergone mass extinctions. An event 250 million years ago killed off more than 90 percent of all species on the planet. Another die-off, 65 million years ago, brought an end to the dinosaurs. ...

Wake-up call: an alarming TV program about sleeping sickness spurred a group of students into action.
September 23, 2005... Kay Kobbe's third-grade students at Chatsworth Avenue School in Larchmont, N.Y., could not believe what they had seen. Kobbe had shown them a tape of an episode of the CBS-TV news program 60 Minutes, brought to school by classmate Sam Gruppo....

Fireball physics: have baseball pitchers reached the limit of human endurance?
September 23, 2005... They're called fireballers or flamethrowers--pitchers who can throw a baseball 160 kilometers (100 miles) per hour or more. A baseball moving that fast takes less than half a second to travel from the pitcher's hand to the catcher's mitt. ...

Glacier kept under wraps.(Andermatt ski resort)
September 23, 2005... GEMSSTOCK, Switzerland -- When ski season ended in Switzerland in the spring, the owners of the Andermatt ski resort rolled out a 2,500-square-kilometer (26,900-square-foot) sheet of plastic. They then used the enormous sheet to cover part of...

Weed killer deadly to frogs.
September 23, 2005... PITTSBURGH -- A popular herbicide has been found to kill more than just weeds. It kills amphibians, too, according to a biologist at the University of Pittsburgh. The herbicide, called Roundup, is the second most widely used weed killer in...

Teen diagnoses 'PlayStation thumb'.(Safura Abdool Karim's research on video games impact on children)(Brief Article)
September 23, 2005... DURBAN, South Africa -- Safura Abdool Karim, 13, considers video games a "waste of time." Still, the many hours she has put into studying their effects enabled her to make medical history. Safura recruited 120 schoolmates for her study. Of...

Case closed on garage door mystery.(Department of Defense radio waves' shut nearby garage doors)(Brief Article)
September 23, 2005... YORBA LINDA, Calif. -- Shelley Slack felt like a desperate housewife when the door to the garage of her suburban home developed a mind of its own earlier this year. The door refused to obey her commands and opened and closed on its own. "One...

Insight.(business card collections)(Brief Article)
September 23, 2005... Jeannine Mosely owns one of the world's biggest collections of business cards--66,048 in total. Instead of filing them away in her wallet, she built the Menger sponge pictured here. A Menger sponge is a three-dimensional fractal, a structure...

What is suspended animation?(a temporary state of apparent death)(Brief Article)
September 23, 2005... Have you seen Alien or 2001: A Space Odyssey or Planet of the Apes? Suspended animation is a temporary state of apparent death. Characters in science-fiction stories are often placed in suspended animation for long space voyages. One U.S....

Cowabunga! Surf's up at the pool.(Versareef for surfing)(Brief Article)
September 23, 2005... RAGLAN, New Zealand -- You're jonesin' to surf, but the ocean is too far away? Try the next best thing: Hang 10 at your local pool. Two New Zealand companies have invented the Versareef, a shape-morphing apparatus that can generate...