Science News articles from April 2003

Science News archives from April 2003

Cannibal dinosaur known by its bones. (Family Meal).(Majungatholus atopus)
April 5, 2003... Some carnivorous dinosaurs routinely fed on their own species, according to an analysis of scarred fossils. Paleontologists contend the ancient gnaw marks are among the strongest evidence yet that some dinosaurs indeed were cannibals. ...

Drug slows Alzheimer's in severely ill patients. (Progress Against Dementia).(memantine)
April 5, 2003... A drug already sold in Europe hampers the relentless assault of late-stage Alzheimer's disease, a new study reveals. The finding suggests that the drug, called memantine, could help patients previously considered untreatable. "This is...

Do birds count their eggs before they hatch? (Careful Coots).
April 5, 2003... A coot may tally the eggs in her nest, a rare example of an animal counting in the wild, suggests a new study. American coots (Fulica americana) wage covert egg wars among themselves, sneaking into a neighboring nest to deposit an egg for...

Mutated genes disrupt nerve cell proteins. (Autism Advance).(autism research)
April 5, 2003... A French research team has identified two mutated genes that appear to cause the neurological disorder known as autism. The little-studied genes both normally yield proteins that nerve cells use to form communication channels. "These are...

Prototype chills fast and electrifies, too. (A New Cool).(thermoelectric cooling materials)
April 5, 2003... Researchers last week rolled out a prototype semiconductor-based device that stands a good chance of transforming some refrigeration and power technologies. Made of thousands of alternating atoms-thick layers of two semiconductor materials, the...

Plastic ingredient spurs chromosomal defects. (Wrong Number).(aneuploidy may be caused by bisphenol A, component of polycarbonate plastics)
April 5, 2003... The primary chemical in some plastics causes female mice to produce eggs with abnormal numbers of chromosomes, according to a new study. In people, the condition--called aneuploidy--is the leading cause of miscarriages and several forms of...

Black holes spew as much as they consume. (Cosmic Blowout).
April 5, 2003... Notorious for gorging on matter, the supermassive black holes at the cores of galaxies may blow out as much material as they swallow. A study reported last week suggests that during the roughly 10 billion years that these black holes power the...

Building a better shuttle: NASA turns to new designs and materials.
April 5, 2003... By now, the space shuttles can be considered the dinosaurs of the space age, as obsolete as a 386 computer. But they're still flying, and when and if NASA lifts the moratorium it imposed after the shuttle Columbia broke apart on Feb. 1, the...

The vaccinia dilemma: smallpox shot poses modest danger, uncertain benefit.
April 5, 2003... Consider two troubling scenarios. First, imagine that the government's current smallpox vaccination campaign peters out before even a million people are vaccinated. Then, a month or perhaps a decade from now, terrorists cause simultaneous...

Ssshhh: South Pole has a new seismic station. (Earth Science).(Brief Article)
April 5, 2003... New seismometers near the South Pole reveal that the area is the quietest spot on the planet for eavesdropping on earthquakes. Scientists hope the remote instruments, first turned on in mid-January, will pick up quake signs that are drowned out...

Prenatal marijuana exposure may pose health risks. (Biomedicine).(Brief Article)
April 5, 2003... Rats that were exposed to a marijuana-related chemical while in the womb show more memory lapses and hyperactivity than unexposed rats do, a study finds. Marijuana-exposure studies in people have been clouded by factors such as a mother's...

Spacecraft reveal Mars' molten heart. (Astronomy).
April 5, 2003... The core of Mars is at least partially liquid, planetary scientists have concluded. The Red Planet hasn't completely cooled since its formation 4.5 billion years ago, and its core is made either entirely of liquid iron or has a solid iron...

Human RNA genes counted up. (Biology).(Brief Article)
April 5, 2003... A new analysis concludes that 200 to 255 human genes, or nearly 1 percent of all human genes, encode short strands of ribonucleic acid instead of protein as their end product. Scientists initially discovered several genes encoding these...

Passive smoking may foster kids' cavities. (Infectious Diseases).
April 5, 2003... Young children who grow up in an environment where people smoke face an exaggerated risk of dental decay--but only in their baby teeth, a new study finds. Earlier studies had demonstrated that environmental exposure to cigarette smoke can...

Sleep debt exacts deceptive cost. (Behavior).(Brief Article)
April 5, 2003... A modest but constant sleep shortage undermines alertness and other mental faculties in a matter of days, according to a report in the March 15 Sleep. Moreover, people who get by on a modest sleep deficit are often not aware of their shrinking...

Sperm show age. (Biology).(Brief Article)
April 5, 2003... Looks like women aren't the only ones who need to worry about their biological clock when it comes to having a baby. A new study indicates that the quality of men's sperm declines with age. Women's fertility decreases until menopause, when...

Fossils of early salamanders found. (Paleontology).
April 5, 2003... Newly discovered fossilized salamanders push back a milestone in amphibian evolution by more than 100 million years, paleontologists say. Volcanic ash smothered members of at least five previously unknown species of cryptobranchid...

Elderhouse: Planning Your Best Home Ever.(Book Review)
April 5, 2003... ADELAIDE ALTMAN A house that served you well when the children were young may not be the best environment as you age, reports Altman. It may be unsafe or simply too much work. Altman helps readers envision homes that serve present and...

The Killers Within: The Deadly Rise of Drug-Resistant Bacteria.(Book Review)
April 5, 2003... MICHAEL SHNAYERSON AND MARK J. PLOTKIN This is a wake-up call that penicillin and its drug relatives can no longer be considered cures for infectious diseases. Shnayerson and Plotkin report that because of the misuse of antibiotics,...

Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883.(Book Review)
April 5, 2003... SIMON WINCHESTER More than 40,000 people perished as a result of the eruption of the Krakatoa volcano in Java nearly 125 years ago. Most of these people were killed as a result of the giant tsunamis it triggered. The blast was so intense...

Tough Plants: Unkillable Plants for Every Garden.(Book Review)
April 5, 2003... SHARON AMOS So your thumb's not so green, or you have a patch of land that just doesn't seem to support plant life. This guide to 100 virtually unkillable plants may be for you. Initial chapters provide some basic gardening tips for...

Why Stock Markets Crash: Critical Events in Complex Financial Systems.(Book Review)
April 5, 2003... DIDIER SORNETTE Here a scientist treads on economists' territory. Sornette applies cutting-edge thinking in the field of complexity and the theory of critical phenomena to the inner workings of the stock market. The objective is a...

Cheese, if you please. (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)
April 5, 2003... "Dairying Pioneers: Milk ran deep in prehistoric England" (SN: 2/1/03, p. 6'7) says that "lactose, a sugar in milk, commonly elicits allergic reactions." Lactose and many other carbohydrates don't elicit an allergic response. JONATHAN...

Space available. (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)
April 5, 2003... Years of budgetary constraints and compromises have all but destroyed NASA's ability to deliver on the grand visions of yester-year ("Columbia Disaster: Why did the space shuttle burn up?" SN: 2/8/03, p. 83). Sadly, I think that the best...

Exotic processes probe the heart of matter. (Rare Events).
April 12, 2003... Physicists have for the first time unambiguously detected and measured the rates of certain rare reactions among protons, neutrons, and simple atomic nuclei, possibly opening a novel window onto the deepest nature of matter. At Canada's...

Using distant galaxies to study the early universe. (Once Upon a Time in the Cosmos).
April 12, 2003... Peering far back in time, two teams of astronomers say they've found some of the universe's earliest galaxies. The findings suggest that less than a billion years after the Big Bang, some galaxies were already minting the equivalent of several...

All that flash puts birds at extra risk. (Costly Sexiness).(how colors of birds affects their survival)
April 12, 2003... In many bird species, a male's plumagediffers from a female's, notes Paul F. Doherty Jr. of Colorado State University in Fort Collins. After analyzing 21 years of birdwatchers' records across the United States, Doherty and his colleagues report...

Rock climbing cuts mollusk diversity. (At a Snail's Place).
April 12, 2003... As rock climbing soars in popularity, some cliff-side snail populations may be crashing, according to new research. While focusing attention on cliff ecosystems, the finding is also instigating debates about tougher climbing regulations. A...

Seeds of cancer in transplant recipients are traced back to donors. (Deadly Stowaways).
April 12, 2003... An organ transplant gives many people a second chance at life, but the harsh drugs required for staving off immune rejection of the new tissues seem to hike a recipient's risk of cancer. For someone desperately in need of a heart or liver, this...

Gene may signal ancient prion-disease outbreaks. (Cannibalism's DNA Trail).
April 12, 2003... Cannibalism among prehistoric humans may have left lasting genetic marks, a team of scientists contends. Their controversial argument hinges on a link between specific DNA mutations and a disease that afflicted South Pacific villagers who...

Chemical guides germ cells to gonads. (Putting Out the Welcome Mat).
April 12, 2003... Even though it only covers a few millimeters, the trip can take several days. In the mouse embryo, cells that spawn sperm or eggs must travel from where they arise to their destination in the developing gonads. A Japanese research team has...

Liberty's smooth move.(Liberty Bell to be moved to new home)(Brief Article)
April 12, 2003... Workers briefly lifted Philadelphia's 2,000-pound Liberty Bell off its supports last month, giving the icon a taste of the stresses it will encounter this fall when it moves 300 yards to a new home. Last week, the National Science Foundation...

Cultivating weeds: is your yard a menace to parks and wild lands?
April 12, 2003... In 1985, shortly after buying a heavily shaded home in one of Washington, D.C.'s northern suburbs, I installed 35 liriope plants (Liriope muscari), also known as turf lilies. Gardening books recommend these East Asian, shade-tolerant border...

The stone masters: toolmakers at work and children at play reflect ancient technology.
April 12, 2003... In the Indonesian island village of Langda, located on Irian Jaya near its border with Papua New Guinea, a half-dozen men sit in an open space, chipping fragments out of rocks. It's not rocket science, but it's a veritable rock science still...

Microbicide thwarts AIDS virus in monkey test. (Immunology).(Brief Article)
April 12, 2003... Experimental medicines containing human-derived antibodies to HIV are partially effective in stopping transmission of the virus, according to tests in rhesus macaque monkeys. The new study, in the March Nature Medicine, suggests that such...

Mapping watersheds invites comparisons. (Environment).(Brief Article)
April 12, 2003... Computerized maps of environmental features for 154 of the largest river watersheds around the globe will soon be available to the public, free of charge. A group of research and conservation groups unveiled a draft of the interactive database...

All-sky survey makes Internet debut. (Astronomy).(celestial map available online)(Brief Article)
April 12, 2003... Last month, an atlas of some 5 million images from the celestial map known as the Two Micron All-Sky Survey (2MASS) became available online (http://www.ipac.caltech.edu/2mass/gallery). It's the most detailed high-resolution survey of the entire...

Weight-loss pill carries risks. (Biomedicine).(ephedra)(Brief Article)
April 12, 2003... An analysis of past research on ephedra, an over-the-counter dietary supplement, indicates that the pill leads to modest weight loss but poses significant dangers to health. Those include psychiatric problems and a wide range of physical harm,...

Catnip repels pest. (Natural Products).(Brief Article)
April 12, 2003... Catnip may be the cat's meow, but the plant's oil repels roaches and mosquitoes (SN: 9/8/01, p. 148). Now, the entomologist who discovered this insect-harassing power of catnip, Chris Peterson of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Forest...

Nuclear-waste monitoring gets close to the source. (Analytical Chemistry).
April 12, 2003... Some forms of nuclear radiation--such as the beta-emission from radioactive technetium-99--are particularly difficult to detect underground, partly because the radiation doesn't travel very far. A new prototype instrument may make this and...

Matcha green tea packs the antioxidants. (Food Chemistry).(Brief Article)
April 12, 2003... Some nutritionists have suggested that matcha, the green tea prepared during Japanese tea ceremonies, might offer more health benefits than the green tea most people drink in the United States. Until now, however, there was little scientific...

Contacts could dispense drugs. (Drug Delivery).(contact lenses)(Brief Article)
April 12, 2003... Eye medication usually comes in drops. That's not good, says Anuj Chauhan. Only about 5 percent of the medicine treats the eye. The rest drains into the body, where it can reach the bloodstream and cause complications. Better, Chauhan says,...

Consider the Leaf: Foliage in Garden Design.(Book Review)
April 12, 2003... JUDY GLATTSTEIN After the flowers, then what? How do you keep a garden interesting? Foliage, declares Glattstein. She encourages gardeners to plant with an emphasis on leaf form, texture, and color that will maintain the garden's vibrancy...

The Dependent Gene: The Fallacy of "Nature vs. Nurture".(Book Review)
April 12, 2003... DAVID S. MOORE According to the author, it's wrong to consider just nurture or just nature when evaluating human traits. Moore, a psychologist, argues that "all traits--from 'biological' ones such as hair color and height to complex...

The Nature of Science: An A-Z Guide to the Laws and Principles Governing Our Universe.(Book Review)
April 12, 2003... JAMES TREFIL This tlandy reference gives quick and concise overviews of important scientific concepts. Essays of no more than three pages succinctly provide historical background, as well as descriptive text, about ideas ranging from...

The Nine Emotional Lives of Cats: A Journey into the Feline Heart.(Book Review)
April 12, 2003... JEFFREY MOUSSAIEFF MASON Cats have a reputation as being indifferent and aloof creatures that don't exhibit much of an emotional life. Mason believes this is a bad rap because cats are almost pure emotion. Several years ago, this...

Silent Witness: How Forensic Anthropology Is Used to Solve the World's Toughest Crimes.(Book Review)
April 12, 2003... ROXANA FERLLINI In 29 case studies, Ferllini explains the methods that she and other forensic anthropologists use to identify corpses and recreate death scenes. Sometimes this task is daunting. In the case of the missing body of South...

Sync: The Emerging Science of Spontaneous Order.(Book Review)
April 12, 2003... STEVEN STROGATZ It is in the very nature of the universe for its elements to be in sync. The moon spins in perfect resonance with its orbit around Earth. The pendulums on clocks alongside one another swing together, Such spontaneous order...

Devil of a question. (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)
April 12, 2003... I scuba dive, and I've noticed that when the current is brisk through some coral formations, small swirls behave exactly as dust devils ("Dust devils produce magnetic fields," SN: 2/8/03, p. 94). Would the researchers predict that any magnetic...

Driven to distraction. (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)
April 12, 2003... I wish the testing described in "Cell phones distract drivers, hands down" (SN: 2/8/03, p. 94) had used airline pilots, policemen, and other people who are accustomed to operating their machines while carrying on a conversation. Cell phones are...

MS and G? (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)
April 12, 2003... "Essence of G" (SN: 2/8/03, p. 92) refers to "the current theory that high intelligence arises from the coating of brain cells with especially large amounts of the fatty substance called myelin." As a person with multiple sclerosis, anything...

Correction.(Correction Notice)
April 12, 2003... "At last, a bird that nails killer chicks" (SN: 3/29/03, p. 206) misspells the genus name for Horsfield's bronze-cuckoo. It should have been Chrysococcyx basalis.

Researchers predict, then produce superior titanium alloys. (Invent by Number).
April 19, 2003... Ingenious people have produced alloys since ancient times. By trial and error, they mixed metals and other elements until the whole came out better than any component alone. In recent years, some scientists have said that alloy development is a...

In reactors and nanotubes, errant atoms get a grip. (Between the Sheets).
April 19, 2003... Reach out and touch each other. That's something that carbon atoms in adjoining layers within graphite aren't supposed to do--even in the cores of nuclear reactors where graphite blocks take a beating from neutron radiation. New...

Snippets of DNA persist in soil for millennia. (Fertile Ground).
April 19, 2003... Minuscule samples of sediment from New Zealand and Siberia have yielded bits of DNA from dozens of animals and plants, some long extinct. This genetic material, which includes the oldest DNA sequences yet found that can be traced to a specific...

Brain area may support fact and event memory. (Neural Recall).
April 19, 2003... A small, inner-brain region called the hippocampus boasts a well-earned reputation as a memory hub. However, researchers disagree about whether the hippocampus specializes in remembering only experiences or instead coordinates recall of both...

Plutonium leaves genetic fingerprint. (Radiation Marks Chromosomes).
April 19, 2003... By examining specific types of long-lasting genetic rearrangements in blood cells, researchers have found a way to measure a person's past exposure to plutonium radiation. Biophysicist David J. Brenner of Columbia University, who helped develop...

Now the human genome is really done. (Moving On).(Brief Article)
April 19, 2003... Coinciding with celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the discovery of DNA'S double helix structure, an international consortium of scientists declared this week that the deciphering of the human genetic code is now truly complete. In...

Experimental therapy fights Parkinson's. (Protein Pump).
April 19, 2003... At first glance, people with Parkinson's disease appear to have damaged muscles, as evidenced by tremors and rigidity. But in reality, their problem is a loss of brain cells needed to produce and regulate dopamine. Among its other duties, this...

Bluegill dads: not mine? Why bother? (Fishy Paternity Defense).
April 19, 2003... Bluegill sunfish have provided an unusually tidy test of the much-discussed prediction that animal dads' diligence in child care depends on how certain they are that the offspring really are their own. When researchers presented male...

Happy anniversary: fifty years after Watson and Crick's insight, scientists continue to take a close look at DNA's double helix.
April 19, 2003... On April 25, 1953, a brief research paper appeared in the British scientific journal Nature. Fifty years later, it's one of the most famous publications of all time and often considered the start of the molecular biology and genetics revolution...

Words get in the way: talk is cheap, but it can tax your memory.
April 19, 2003... Law-enforcement officials typically solicit descriptions of criminals from eyewitnesses, often just after an offense has occurred. It stands to reason that thorough accounts by those who saw what happened will help investigators round up the...

Light rambles through room-temperature ruby. (Physics).(Brief Article)
April 19, 2003... In experiments over the past 2 years, physicists have been slowing laser light to a crawl, sometimes even stopping it cold within certain frigid gasses and solids. Now, researchers at the University of Rochester (N.Y.) have dramatically...

Shots stop allergic reactions to venom. (Biomedicine).(Brief Article)
April 19, 2003... For some people living in Australia, jack jumper ants (Myrmecia pilosula) are no picnic. Nearly 3 percent of people in the state of Tasmania, for example, are allergic to the stings of these ants. Such reactions can be fatal if not treated...

Echoes of a stellar outburst. (Astronomy).(Brief Article)
April 19, 2003... Like a flashbulb illuminating fog, light from the outburst of a star has revealed its dusty surroundings. The light bouncing off the dust, which astronomers call a light echo, hasn't been observed in our galaxy since 1936. The new echo has been...

Fusion device crosses threshold. (Physics).(Brief Article)
April 19, 2003... By sparking thermonuclear reactions, a machine simply called Z has joined the big leagues among potential technologies for producing power from controlled nuclear fusion. Thermonuclear fusion takes place when matter becomes so hot that...

Vaccine didn't cause heart deaths. (Vaccine Safety).(Brief Article)
April 19, 2003... Fatal heart attacks that recently struck two people after they were vaccinated against smallpox were probably unfortunate coincidences, not adverse consequences of vaccination, say epidemiologists who base their conclusion on death records from...

Africa faces new meningitis threat. (Emerging Infections).(Brief Article)
April 19, 2003... A previously rare, vaccine-resistant strain of a deadly bacterium caused an epidemic of meningitis last year in western Africa and seems to have spread around the world, researchers report. Three years ago, people from more than a dozen...

Transfusions and transplants spread West Nile virus. (Biomedicine).(Brief Article)
April 19, 2003... Donated blood and organs should be screened to prevent transmission of West Nile virus, federal officials say. In addition to bites from infected mosquitoes, which is the most common route of infection in both people and animals, blood and...

Body wraps caused rash of rashes. (Infectious Diseases).(Brief Article)
April 19, 2003... A CDC investigator has linked an outbreak of skin infections to unsanitary practices at a body-wrap salon. The spa, as others do, has customers exercise while tightly swathed in wet elastic bandages. Alicia Cronquist, assigned by CDC to the...

Gestures help words become memorable. (Memory).(Brief Article)
April 19, 2003... Hand gestures amplify the impact of spoken words, rather than serving merely as embellishment for speech, say Emily S. Cross and Elizabeth A. Franz, both of the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand. People recall more of what they hear...

Left brain hammers out tool use. (Neurobiology).(Brief Article)
April 19, 2003... Pounding nails with a hammer, sawing wood, and wielding other familiar tools are feats coordinated by the brain's left hemisphere, new studies suggest. "The left hemisphere may maintain knowledge about how to use objects that serve as...

Faster Than the Speed of Light: the Story of a Scientific Speculation.(Book Review)
April 19, 2003... JOAO MAGUEIJO In his general theory of relativity, Albert Einstein postulated that light travels at one speed only, a concept that physicists almost universally have accepted. Magueijo, a professor of theoretical physics at Imperial...

The Gardener's Weather Bible: How to Predict and Prepare for Garden Success in Any Kind of Weather.(Book Review)
April 19, 2003... SALLY ROTH Roth embraces the rain. So much so, she writes, that she's in her garden at the first drop, busily transplanting, weeding, and sowing new seeds. That way, she takes advantage of the moist soil and air and avoids the sunlight...

Our Cosmic Habitat.(Book Review)
April 19, 2003... MARTIN REES Albert Einstein once asked, "Could God have made the world any differently?" Renowned theoretical astrophysicist Rees answers that question, "Yes." As he did in a series of lectures at Princeton University, Rees argues here on...

Rational Mysticism: Dispatches from the Border Between Science and Spirituality.(Book Review)
April 19, 2003... JOHN HORGAN In his 1997 book The End of Science, Horgan briefly considered whether mystical experiences might yield insights that could transcend what we can learn through objective investigation. Although he feared that this topic...

The X in Sex: How the X Chromosome Controls our Lives.(Book Review)
April 19, 2003... DAVID BAINBRIDGE Up until the sixth week after conception, all embryos are sexually the same. How then do we become male or female? The answer lies in the X and Y chromosomes, with males getting one of each and females getting two Xs....

Fat chance. (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)
April 19, 2003... "Dietary Dilemmas" (SN: 2/8/03, p. 88) makes disturbing use of Neal Barnard as a spokesman warning against the high-protein weight-loss diet. Barnard represents Physicians Committee For Responsible Medicine (PCRM). What's not to love about an...

New and improved. (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)
April 19, 2003... "Synthetic molecule may treat anemia" (SN: 2/15/03, p. 109) reports that chemically synthesized erythropoiesis protein (SEP) was more effective than the genetically engineered molecule. Is there speculation on why that is? ANN DERSHOWITZ,...

Take dot. (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)
April 19, 2003... I am puzzled by Shuming Nie's prognostication that quantum dots will "be the first example of nanotechnology that can really have some practical applications" ("Nanolights! Camera! Action!" SN: 2/15/0& p. 107). Colloidal gold particles of...

Solid proof offered for famous conjecture. (Spheres in Disguise).(Grigori Perelman proves Poincare conjecture)
April 26, 2003... A Russian mathematician may have finally cracked one of the most famous problems in mathematics: the Poincare conjecture, a question about the shapes of three-dimensional spaces. If his work is correct, it will make him eligible for a $1...

Classic partnership isn't so tidy after all. (Fig-Wasp Upset).(research indictes two species of wasp pollinate fig species)
April 26, 2003... Textbooks that marvel over an extreme example of the buddy system--fig species that supposedly each pair up with a lone pollinating wasp species--may need rewriting, according to a new genetic analysis. In four out of eight fig species...

Rain forests may slow their growth in warmer world. (Feel the Heat).
April 26, 2003... During a long-term research project in a Central American rain forest, mature trees grew more slowly in warm years than they did in cooler ones. This observation hints that tropical forests may become less efficient at removing planet-warming...

Mutation causes early-aging syndrome. (Genetic Clue to Aging?).(Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome )
April 26, 2003... Why does the human body deteriorate as a person ages? Two research teams have found a new clue to this longstanding mystery. Both groups have identified a mutation that causes children to suffer a form of accelerated aging that usually results...