Science World articles from March 2002

Science World archives from March 2002

Deadly Congo Volcano. (Earth News).(eruption of Mount Nyiragongo)
March 11, 2002... ON JANUARY 18, one of Africa's deadliest volcanoes unleashed a river of lava--scalding liquid rock--down its steep slopes, smothering the town of Goma. The torrent erupted from Congo's 3,469-meter (11,380-foot)-high Mount Nyiragongo...

Bionic eye. (Life/Tech News).(scientists fashion eye implant from space-age material)(Statistical Data Included)
March 11, 2002... LAST JANUARY, University of Houston scientists announced an "eye opening" breakthrough: an implant that may cure some forms of blindness. The Houston team plans to start human trials of a new bionic eye--partly inspired by unmanned experiments...

Big mouth. (Freeze Frame).(Asian arowana)
March 11, 2002... AT THE first sign of danger--human hands invading a fish tank, for example--baby Asian arowana (Scleropages formosus) dart into their dad's mouth for safety. Like a cozy cradle, the deep mouth of an adult male arowana is designed to snuggle...

Welcome to my jungle ... before it's gone. (Rainforests).(Statistical Data Included)
March 11, 2002... What does hot fudge have in common with paint thinner, or chewing gum with some lifesaving medicines? Many of their ingredients come only from tropical rainforests. Rainforests occupy merely 7 percent of Earth's land area, but harbor at...

Rainforest frogs: vanishing act? Frog populations around the world are dying off mysteriously. Can scientists save them--before it's too late? (Amphibians/Ecology).(Statistical Data Included)
March 11, 2002... RAINFORESTS SEEM to have everything any frog could crave--lots of water, an endless variety of bugs to prey oil, and thousands of hiding places. No wonder more than 2,100 frog species call rainforests their home. In a 3-square-kilometer...

Respect: learning to value yourself and others. (Keep The Cool In School A Scholastic Campaign Against Violence and Verbal Abuse).
March 11, 2002... WHY DO we have such a hard time seeing ourselves as we really are? Most of us have a somewhat distorted view of ourselves. And many of us distort in negative ways--we feel dumber, uglier, less capable, and less desirable than we really are. Why...

Nuclear nightmare? The U.S. depends on 103 nuclear reactors for energy. Are they sitting ducks for terrorists? (Nuclear Power/Radiation).
March 11, 2002... UNDER THE cover of darkness, three masked saboteurs scale the barbed-wire fence that fortifies the Waterford 3 nuclear plant in Taft, Louisiana. The armed intruders disable surveillance cameras, sneak past security guards, and slip inside the...

Gross out? (Activities & Oddities).(Michigan cat has seven more toes than the average cat)(Illustration)
March 11, 2002... WHAT'S SO "gross" about Twinkle Toes, a darling short-haired domestic tiger cat? Her toes. With 25, she sports the most of any feline in the world, claims the Guinness Book of Records. Cats normally have 18:10 toes on front paws and eight on...

Explain this!(the mouth of a Pacific lamprey)(Illustration)
March 11, 2002... Whose mouth is this? ANSWERS Explain This! The mouth belongs to a Pacific lamprey (Entosphenus tridentatus). And just because the species is classified as agnaths, which means "jawless fishes," don't underestimate its bite. This...

Quiz. (Science In The News).
March 11, 2002... DIRECTIONS: Read the late-breaking news in our Science News section on pages 4 to 6. Then test your knowledge by answering the questions below. Circle the correct letter. 1. Lava is: a. scalding liquid rock b. superheated...

Frog watch: use a field journal. (Critical Thinking).
March 11, 2002... Reread the article "Rainforest Frogs: Vanishing Act?" (p. 12). Now, imagine you're a herpetologist. You are observing frogs in a tropical rainforest, and you've noticed flogs doing strange things that leave you scratching your head in wonder....

Biodiversity hotspots. (Chart-Reading Activity).(Statistical Data Included)
March 11, 2002... Biodiversity hotspots are regions in which huge concentrations of life forms live but face extreme habitat loss. Many species that inhabit hotspots are endemic, or found nowhere else on Earth. In the table below, you'll find data about four...

Rainforest I.Q.: from the dense, leafy canopy to the fertile twilight of the forest floor, how much do you know about the many-layered world of the rainforest? Take this quiz to find out. (Test Your Knowledge).
March 11, 2002... 1. Fifty percent of the Earth's species live in tropical rainforests, making these forests a. the richest regions on earth in terms of biological diversity. b. dangerously overcrowded. c. at serious risk of food shortage. d....

Saving face. (Life/Tech News).(Mark Tatum's prosthetic face)
March 25, 2002... IN FEBRUARY 2000, Mark Tatum suffered a rare infection so severe it literally ate most of his face. The cause? Common fungi of the order Mucarales. A fungus is a single or multi-celled organism that survives by absorbing food through a thin...

Copy cat. (Life News).(Texas A and M University's College of Veterinary Medicine develops "cc" the cloned cat)
March 25, 2002... WHY SHOULD a cat settle for nine lives when it can have endless lives--at least, so to speak, with the help of researchers at Texas A&M University's College of Veterinary Medicine. That's where the first-ever cloned domestic cat was born in...

Skylights. (Freeze Frame).(aurora borealis)
March 25, 2002... LAST OCTOBER, dazzling multicolored lights lit up Michigan's West Grand Traverse Bay. First signs of an alien invasion? No, they're a celestial spectacle called the aurora borealis, or Northern Lights, which appear most often above the North...

Space diver: what's it like to dive from the edge of space--a place no human has ever jumped from before? Cheryl Stearns plans to find out. (Atmosphere/Skydiving).
March 25, 2002... IMAGINE: AT 40 kilometers (25 miles) above the ground--more than four times the flying altitude of a commercial jet--you huddle inside a small aluminum basket, tethered to a paper-thin helium balloon inflated to the size of a football stadium....

Monsters of the deep. (Marine Biology/Oceans).(National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration creates Office of Ocean Exploration for deep-sea creatures research)
March 25, 2002... THERE'S A place on Earth where night and day don't exist. No sunlight penetrates at all. Temperatures are a bone-chilling 2 [degrees] C (36 [degrees] F) all year long. Oxygen is scarce, food scarcer. Pressure crushes from all sides--the...

Science in the news: quiz.
March 25, 2002... DIRECTION: Read the late-breaking news in our Science News section on pages 4 to 6. Then test your knowledge by answering the questions below. Circle the correct letter. 1. The body's disease-fighting system: a. anatomy b....

Helping hand: one teen's fast-food run bagged him more than a meal. He found inspiration for a prize-winning invention--one that may bridge the communication gap between the hearing and the deaf. (Inventions/Hearing).
March 25, 2002... WHEN RYAN Patterson hit his local Burger King, he noticed a group of customers using sign language to place an order. But the deaf adults relied on a speaking interpreter to relay their choices to a cashier. A light bulb flashed in Patterson's...

Gross out? (You can do it: activities & oddities).(banking; grafting dismembered bodyparts)
March 25, 2002... YOU'VE GOT to hand it to medical science. When this patient mangled most of her right hand in an accident, a team of microsurgeons (doctors who use microscopes to operate on tiny body parts) "replanted" her three detached fingers and crafted a...

Dive in! (Check Your Knowledge).(quiz on oceans and marine life)(Brief Article)
March 25, 2002... Name: -- Scientists know more about the moon than Earth's deep ocean zones. How much do you know about the planet's vast water world? Circle the correct answer. 1. The oceans contain what percentage of Earth's-water? a. 48 b....

Hear this! (Chart-Reading Activity 1).(hearing and noise)
March 25, 2002... Name: -- Do your ears ring after you mow the lawn? Or do you suffer from temporary hearing loss after a rock concert? According to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, more than 30 million people in the...

Sound chart: how loud is it? (Chart-Reading Activity 2).(Brief Article)
March 25, 2002... Sound Chart: How Loud Is It? Noise Level Sound Chart (db) Effect Jet engine (near) 140 Firecracker 140 Rock concert ...