New York Times Upfront articles from December 2003

New York Times Upfront archives from December 2003

The aurora borealis.(news & Trends)
December 8, 2003... The aurora borealis paints the sky above Soldotna, Alaska, on October 29. Also called the Northern Lights, the aurora is caused by charged particles from the sun colliding with gases in Earth's atmosphere. The resulting displays of light and...

Creating new-car smell.(Business)(Cadillac puts special scent into its vehicles)
December 8, 2003... For Cadillac, the new-car smell--that pleasing scent of factory freshness--is no longer just a product of chance. General Motors recently revealed that it had engineered a scent for its Cadillac vehicles and had been processing it into the...

Numbers in the news.
December 8, 2003... 65% Percentage of girls, ages 13 to 17, who say they have savings accounts; 52% of boys claim them. SOURCE: GALLUP POLL, NOV. 2003 $4,694 Average yearly tuition for public colleges in 2003, up 14 % from 2002. SOURCE: THE COLLEGE...

Return of the whale hunters.(International)(Iceland to hunt minke whales for research purposes)
December 8, 2003... Despite an outcry from animal-rights groups, Iceland is hunting whales for research. The nation's Marine Research Institute, a government agency, plans to oversee the hunting of 200 minke whales over two years. Scientists plan to analyze the...

Hip grapefruit?(Business)(Florida's efforts to market grapefruit)
December 8, 2003... With some citrus farmers struggling to stay in business, Florida growers are spending $3 million on a new marketing campaign to make the grapefruit more hip to a younger generation. "It's perceived as, you put it on a prate with a white doily...

Cloned food fight.(Soundbites)
December 8, 2003... 'The probability is that the food is safe to eat.... But the jury's stilt out.' --Lester Crawford of the Food and Drug Administration, on the agency's conclusion that food from cloned animals is probably safe, but that further research is...

Grown-up dolls for little girls.(Society)(popularity of Bratz dolls)
December 8, 2003... Move over, Barbie. Bratz are the latest must-have dot[ for the preteen set, much to the chagrin of some parents. With names like Jade, Sasha and Yasmin, the Bratz dolls feature exploded hair, inflated lips, shrunken sweaters and shredded...

Critiquing all those nutty web sites.(Q&A)(writer Dan Crowley)(Interview)
December 8, 2003... Dan Crowley, 17, gets such a kick out of silliness on the Web that he wrote a book about it, 505 Unbelievably Stupid Web Pages. One site in his book discusses penguin conspiracies (thepenguinconspiracy.tk); another shows corn growing...

Saying no.(Government)(presidential vetos)
December 8, 2003... When it comes to vetoing bills approved by Congress, some Presidents like wielding a veto pen more than others. President Bush, for example, has not vetoed a single bill since taking office in 2001. Franklin D. Roosevelt, by contrast, vetoed...

Does stress cause acne?(Health)
December 8, 2003... Acne has tong been known to cause stress. Now, a new study offers evidence that what has tong been suspected--that stress causes acne--may also be true. Researchers at Stanford University in California examined students with acne problems on...

Doggie DNA.(Science)
December 8, 2003... Researchers have pieced together a draft of the dog genome, the sequence of DNA units that includes air the genetic instructions for making a dog. The draft, by the Center for the Advancement of Genomics, in Rockville, Md., is based on the DNA...

Expelling Saddam: with Iraq's dictator out of power, schools are removing his image and propaganda from their books and lessons.(Cover Story)
December 8, 2003... When Iraqi children returned to school this fall, they no longer saw Saddam Hussein's portrait in their classrooms or started the day chanting about his long and heroic struggle against the devil that is America. But new Saddam-free...

Asia's missing girls: technology that lets pregnant women know the sex of their babies--combined with a traditional preference for sons--has caused a gender imbalance across much of Asia.(International)
December 8, 2003... In a one-room teahouse tucked between dark-green rice paddies in China s Szechuan province, Luo Yang, a 53-year-old farmer in Deep Peace Village, puffs on a bamboo pipe and says boys are better than girls, "Everyone wants a son, he says. ...

Corruption & despair choke Zimbabwe: it was once one of Africa's most prosperous countries. But five years after its government began seizing white-owned farms, Zimbabwe's economy is in ruins.(International)
December 8, 2003... Edson used to be a foreman on a farm 40 miles south of Harare, Zimbabwe s capital. "They came to us and said, 'You have 10 minutes to leave this farm.' Ten minutes, that's it," says the 29-year-old black man, who spoke on the condition that his...

Help wanted: why are so many potential candidates passing on the chance to run for seats in the House in 2004?(National)(congressional candidates)
December 8, 2003... With just 11 months to go until the 2004 elections, this is recruiting season, the time when party leaders fan out around the country in an effort to persuade potential candidates to run for Congress. This year, however, for Democrats and...

Is corn making us fat? Michael Pollan argues that U.S. farm policy promoting overproduction of corn has made America overweight--and made big food companies very happy.(National)
December 8, 2003... Sometimes even complicated social problems turn out to be simpler than they look. Take America's obesity problem, perhaps the most serious public health issue facing the country. Three of every five Americans are now overweight, and some...

For the Amish, tradition and the Law Collide: wary of idle hands, the Amish are seeking an exemption from child labor laws for their teenage boys.(National)
December 8, 2003... Over the din of a buzzing band saw, the Amish furniture maker complained that Uncle Sam was out to get owners of woodworking shops like his simply for trying to teach Amish youths a trade. The Amish just want to be let alone, he says, but...

When man took to the skies: one hundred years ago this month, in Kitty Hawk, N.C., the Wright brothers gave the world powered flight.(Times Past)
December 8, 2003... On Dec. 8, 1903, Samuel Langley watched helplessly as 17 years of hard work crashed into the Potomac River near Washington. His winged "aerodrome," shot over the water from a catapult, briefly soared upward, then plummeted backward into the...

Smile, you're on candid cell phone: with millions of cell-phone snapshots being beamed into cyberspace, are people's privacy rights at risk?(Technology)
December 8, 2003... As the man in front of him at the grocery store began yelling at a cashier who could not process his credit card, Gary Dann flipped open his camera phone and pressed a few buttons, pretending to look up a number. Moments later, as the man paid...

Should players be eligible for the NFL draft right out of high school? With Maurice Clarett challenging the NFL's three-year waiting rule in court, two NFL Hall of Fame players square off.(Debate)
December 8, 2003... YES Football players should be eligible for the NFL draft as soon as they graduate from high school. Supporters of the three year waiting period argue that it's important to encourage players to go to college. I believe in going to...

Politic's is local in New Hampshire's primary.(Voices)(presidential election primaries)
December 8, 2003... Every four years, New Hampshire gets a bounce in its step when primary season rolls arotmd. Since 1952, New Hampshire's primary has been the first in the presidential election season. This status gives our very small state a lot of political...

More time in school = less obesity?(Graph Exercise)
December 8, 2003... Medical doctors and other experts in health care have been warning Americans for decades about the problem of obesity. For the most part, they have focused on the obvious--the dangers of eating too much high-calorie and high-fat food, and the...

Upfront quiz show.(Illustration)
December 8, 2003... Use with articles throughout the issue. Divide the class into 2-4 teams. Read the statements below, which are answers to questions. In this game, modeled after the TV show Jeopardy!, students must give their answers in the form of...