Science World articles from February 2001

Science World archives from February 2001

MARS: Great Lakes?(investigation of evidence for life on mars)(Brief Article)
February 12, 2001... In NASA scientists' hunt for life on Mars, they don't expect to find billboards advertising "Welcome to the Red Planet!" But every new piece of evidence edges them closer to an extraordinary revelation: Life existed--and might still exist--on...

FATAL FLAMES.(deaths caused by house fires in US)(Brief Article)
February 12, 2001... Each year, U.S. home fires claim the lives of more than 600 children and teens ages 14 and under. In fact, fires at home account for 81 percent of all deaths caused by fire. Surprisingly, most home fire-related deaths occur during winter...

CHICKEN McNOGGIN.(chicken head discovered in fast food order)(Brief Article)
February 12, 2001... No family's chicken dinner is complete without a fight over tasty drumsticks. But for the Ortega family in Newport News, Va., one meal offered slimmer pickings: fried wings and a chicken head--complete with eyeballs, crown, feathers, and beak....

Short Takes.
February 12, 2001... * MOON DOGS Turns out, canines do more than just howl during a full moon--they bite! A new British medical study claims the chance of being chomped by a dog is twice as high during a full moon. To make the connection, scientists analyzed...

Teen Smokers' Patch?(treating nicotine addiction in teenaged smokers)(Brief Article)
February 12, 2001... When teens get caught smoking they may get in trouble, but they rarely get help to kick the habit. Now many anti-smoking activists are advocating that young puffers get treatment--including the self-adhesive nicotine patch. Smokers apply the...

OJ ALERT.(orange juice, pasteurization to remove salmonella)(Brief Article)
February 12, 2001... A glass of fresh orange juice is packed with vitamin C--essential for fighting colds and healing wounds--but how about a potentially lethal germ? Last fall, 500 Americans fell ill (and one died) from drinking OJ that hadn't been pasteurized, a...

Monkey See, Monkey Glow.(genetically modified primates)(Brief Article)
February 12, 2001... Meet ANDi ("inserted DNA" spelled backward), the world's first genetically modified primate (order including apes, monkeys, and humans). The four-month-old Rhesus monkey was born with an extra glowing gene--called Green Fluorescent Protein...

ANIMAL PARASITES.
February 12, 2001... As Gross As It Gets How far would you go to survive? Consider a parasite--an organism that lives on or inside another organism, or "host." The lancet fluke, for example, is a leaf-shaped flatworm, and this deceptively simple-looking...

WHAT CAUSES GLOBAL WARMING?(Brief Article)
February 12, 2001... Until very recently, scientists thought carbon dioxide was the main culprit behind a warming Earth. But new evidence shows other gases may be just as harmful. Black Carbon Soot (Not a gas) is made of particles produced by burning coal and...

CLIMATE FEVER.(efforts to halt global warming)(Brief Article)
February 12, 2001... How to halt the heat As pollution warms the air, scientists seek ways to cool it down. Spring is usually prime chow time for some 1,200 polar bears along Canada's Hudson Bay. Each year they plunder the bay's ice floes, smash open the...

FLY LIKE A HAWK.(skateboarder Tony Hawk)(Brief Article)
February 12, 2001... Skateboard legend Tony Hawk uses physics to land his daredevil skate stunts. It had never been done before. Not even Tony Hawk, perhaps the world's greatest skateboarder, had ever landed a front-side "900"--two-and-one-half midair...

You Can Do It.
February 12, 2001... Explain This! Why is this "ground breaking"? [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The Lighter Side "Class, who can tell me what I have preserved in this jar? No, it's not a pig or a cow... it's the last student who got caught cheating on one...

DEAR TEACHER:.(interesting students in science)(Brief Article)
February 12, 2001... You tell us that when it comes to getting students excited about science "gross is great." In that case, "Parasites: As Gross As It Gets should be Just the ticket. Have students. read one of the most hair-raising articles Science World has...

Skate STUNTS Hunt.
February 12, 2001... Directions: Solve the clues below by filling in the blanks with the correct word(s). Then find and circle the words in the word-search grid. Words may be vertical, horizontal, diagonal, backward, or forward. Unscramble the letters in the...

Science in the News Quiz.(Brief Article)
February 12, 2001... 1. New NASA photos of Mars show a. Martians. b. methane-gas clouds. c. dried-up lake beds. d. rivers and oceans. 2. In 2013, scientists will probe Mars for a. fossils. b. diamonds. c. forests. d....

Dam Scam?(Brief Article)
February 26, 2001... Dams are just plain awesome. Forged from tons of rock, stone, or concrete, a dam's giant wall straddles river valley to help prevent flooding and churns water to produce hydroelectric power (electricity generated by water-run turbines). "Some...

SNOWED INN.(Review)
February 26, 2001... Looking for a really cool place to stay during your next vacation? Check into Sweden's IceHotel, a 50-room ice fortress located 200 kilometers (124 miles) north of the Arctic Circle. Each November the hotel is constructed anew from 10,000 tons...

Short Takes.(Brief Article)
February 26, 2001... * DINO-ROCKER Paleontologist (fossil scientist) Scott Sampson unearthed a 70-million-year-old dinosaur fossil in Madagascar, an island off the east coast of Africa, while listening to Dire Straits, his favorite rock band. Sampson named the...

Killer Shrimp.(Brief Article)
February 26, 2001... Think WWF wrestlers use killer jabs? Meet the mantis shrimp. Commonly nicknamed "thumb splitter," this crustacean (animal with outer shell and segmented body) features club-like claws that spear and pulverize prey 50 times faster than the blink...

Dial 911?(Brief Article)
February 26, 2001... Just look around at any school or shopping mall and you'll see (and hear) one thing for sure: teens are head over ears for cell phones. By 2004, two out of three Americans between the ages of 10 and 19 will be mobile, say experts at the...

the AGONY of ECSTASY.
February 26, 2001... The popular drug "Ecstasy" promises pure bliss. But the price may be convulsions, strokes, and permanent brain damage. Lauren Simmons(*) thought she found what she'd been searching for when she started to take the illegal drug called...

How Insects Fly.
February 26, 2001... To design tomorrow's planes, scientists examine the dynamics behind insect flight. When a bee zips across your garden, it blurs by at jet speed and turns on a dime like no airplane in the world. And when a fly zooms through your kitchen...

Mysterious NEPTUNE.
February 26, 2001... For centuries, Neptune, the eighth planet from the sun, has been viewed--when visible at all--as the drab stepsister to other planets in our solar system. Then in 1989, NASA's Voyager 2 flew by the fuzzy nobody and sent snapshots to Earth....

You Can Do It.(Brief Article)
February 26, 2001... Explain This! What's this bug doing? The Lighter Side "Ask your doctor about new Zaprin for headaches. Side effects may include the blahs, hissy fits, conniptions or the heebie-jeebies." TEASE YOU BRAIN Trace this shape...

Drug Bust.(Brief Article)
February 26, 2001... Directions: Solve the clues below by filling in the blanks with the correct word(s). Then find and circle the words in the word-search grid. Words may be vertical, horizontal, diagonal, backward, or forward. Unscramble the letters in the...

Science in the News Quiz.
February 26, 2001... Directions: Read the late-breaking science news stories in our Science News section on pages 4-7. Then, test your knowledge by answering the questions below. Circle the correct letter. 1. "Snice" is a a. soothing cough drop. b....