Science News articles from April 2005

Science News archives from April 2005

Hit again: December temblor probably caused new Sumatran quakes.(This Week)
April 2, 2005... Seismic activity that rattled the Indonesian region early this week, including a quake that measured a whopping magnitude 8.7, was triggered by December's massive, tsunami spawning earthquake, scientists suggest. As of press time, the...

Pinstripe electricity: novel fuel cell relies on thin, aqueous streams.(This Week)
April 2, 2005... As scientists increasingly realize, everyday materials tend to act weird at small scales. Microstreams of water, for instance, behave like viscous flows of honey. Recently, a team of engineers and chemists found a way to exploit a...

Follicle size matters: hormone regimen may reduce pregnancy success.(This Week)
April 2, 2005... The hormone injections used to induce livestock and women to ovulate may force some eggs to leave ovarian follicles too early to begin and maintain a successful pregnancy, a new study reports. This finding, made in beef cattle, may explain why...

Breeding parasites along with fish: do sea lice from salmon farms spread far?(This Week)
April 2, 2005... Marine parasites known as sea lice spread readily from farmed salmon to wild fish, according to a study of wild salmon in British Columbia. The researchers, funded by several environmental groups, say their work underscores a possible...

Leak locator: ultrasound for finding holes in spacecraft.(This Week)
April 2, 2005... After the International Space Station t started losing air pressure in January 2004, astronauts hunted for 2 weeks before finding the leak near a porthole. Though it worried mission controllers, the leak never endangered the people on board....

Little brains that could: bees show big-time working memory.(This Week)(honeybees)
April 2, 2005... A honeybee's brain may fit on the head of a match, but a research team says that the bee's working memory is almost as effective as that of a pigeon or a monkey. Working memory is what a person relies on for those few seconds between...

Star packed: super cluster is first to be detected in Milky Way.(This Week)
April 2, 2005... Imagine cramming half-a-million bright young stars into the solar system. Jammed that tightly, they would blast each other with radiation, and some might even coalesce into a black hole. Known as super star clusters, such compact groupings...

Quick fix: how invasive seaweed repairs its wounds.(This Week)
April 2, 2005... Rapid self-healing is critical to the invasiveness of an alien green alga that's currently wreaking havoc in the Mediterranean Sea. Now, scientists have discerned the chemistry underlying this highly efficient repair process. That understanding...

Still hungry? Fattening revelations--and new mysteries--about the hunger hormone.(Cover Story)
April 2, 2005... Too busy to cook, you drop by the neighborhood cafe and treat yourself to fried chicken with a side of macaroni and cheese. You wash it all down with a bottle of apple juice--to balance the high-fat entrees with something healthy. Although...

Full stem ahead: researchers pursue a controversial technique intended to cure diseases by transplanting custom-made cells.
April 2, 2005... In many ways, 9-year-old Jacob Sontag is much like his fourth grade classmates. He loves reading, watching movies, and listening to music, and he's well liked by a large circle of friends. However, Jacob is not a typical boy. He has Canavan...

Why a turkey helps a pal find a mate.(ZOOLOGY)
April 2, 2005... Male turkeys often cruise for mates in pairs, but the sidekick seems like the real turkey. He doesn't get the girl. So, what's in it for him? A classic answer might be right, recent tests show. More than 30 years ago, researchers proposed...

It's a star, but not much of one.(ASTRONOMY)(Brief Article)
April 2, 2005... Astronomers have discovered the smallest star known, and it's hardly bigger than Jupiter. Researchers found the tiny star indirectly, through its interaction with a much larger star that it closely orbits. As seen from Earth, the small...

Volume of glaciers and ice caps is estimated.(EARTH SCIENCE)(Brief Article)
April 2, 2005... New topographic data have enabled scientists to estimate the volume of water trapped in glaciers and other icy features that could melt and raise sea levels in a warmer world. Previously compiled data from field surveys revealed that,...

Assault on Mars.(PLANETARY SCIENCE)(Brief Article)
April 2, 2005... As the Mars rover Spirit recently trudged up a rocky edifice known as Husband Hill, the vehicle's wheels churned up material that drew the immediate attention of scientists. The soil appeared unusually bright, and researchers directed Spirit to...

Molecular decoy thwarts Alzheimer's.(BIOMEDICINE)(Brief Article)
April 2, 2005... As a novel strategy to slow the progression of symptoms, researchers have designed polymer molecules that block the activity of proteins associated with Alzheimer's disease. These beta-amyloid proteins accumulate in the brains of people...

Stopping wool from shrinking.(TEXTILES)(Brief Article)
April 2, 2005... You accidentally toss your favorite wool sweater into the wash, and it reemerges toddler size. To prevent such accidents, scientists in Austria have created an enzyme treatment to protect wool clothes from shrinkage. Wool fibers are...

X rays detect fingerprints.(TECHNOLOGY)(Brief Article)
April 2, 2005... Collecting fingerprints at a crime scene may look easy on television shows, but in real life, it's often challenging. Fingerprints left on textiles, wood, leather, and surfaces with multicolored backgrounds are often difficult to discern. To...

Expanding the genetic code.(BIOCHEMISTRY)(Brief Article)
April 2, 2005... DNA is normally made up of four chemical bases, which go by the letters A, T, C, and G and code for all the proteins in a cell. But what if DNA carried a fifth base? In an effort to explore the mechanisms of evolution, researchers have designed...

Strange Angel: the Otherworldly Life of Rocket Scientist John Whiteside Parsons.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
April 2, 2005... STRANGE ANGEL: The Otherworldly Life of Rocket scientist John Whiteside Parsons GEORGE PENDLE The life of John Whiteside Parsons was two parts science, one part science fiction, and one part black magic. He was a collection of...

A Change of Heart: How the Framingham Heart Study Helped Unravel the Mysteries of Cardiovascular Disease.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
April 2, 2005... A CHANGE OF HEART: How the Framingham Heart Study Helped unravel the Mysteries of Cardiovascular Disease DANIEL LEVY AND SUSAN BRINK Before 1948, most Americans were unaware that the rich, fatty foods they ate, the cigarettes they smoked,...

A Different Universe: Reinventing Physics from the Bottom Down.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
April 2, 2005... A DIFFERENT UNIVERSE: Reinventing Physics from the Bottom Down ROBERT B. LAUGHLIN Nobel prize winner Laughlin writes that physics has traditionally strived to simplify phenomena, through theories of reductionism such as those of the Big...

Clara's Grand Tour: Travels with a Rhinoceros in Eighteenth-Century Europe.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
April 2, 2005... CLARA'S GRAND TOUR: Travels with a Rhinoceros in Eighteenth-Century Europe GLYNIS RIDLEY For nearly 20 years in the mid-1700s, a 3-ton Indian rhino named Clara traveled Europe--from Rotterdam to Breslau, Naples, Marseilles, and many places...

Zoom in, drop out.(Letter to the Editor)
April 2, 2005... On reading the interesting research on droplets ("Dial-a-Splash: Thin air quells liquid splatter," SN: 2/12/05, p. 99), I noticed that the two droplets shown in the photos at the moment of first contact have different shapes. In air at normal...

Ethnic differences.(Letter to the Editor)
April 2, 2005... The work relating differences in intelligence scores to the "honing of spatial sensibilities" in Chinese readers sounds worthy of continued study ("Asian Kids' IQ Lift: Reading system may boost Chinese scores," SN: 2/12/05, p. 99). J. Philippe...

Built like a tank.(Letter to the Editor)
April 2, 2005... Many years ago, I heard about one clever wind-energy-storage system ("Long-winded benefits," SN: 2/12/05, p. 110). A fellow in Pennsylvania purchased a surplus railroad tank car and buried it on his farm. A nearby windmill-powered compressor...

Untangling ancient roots: earliest hominid shows new, improved face.(This Week)
April 9, 2005... Two new lines of evidence bolster the claim that the oldest known member of the human-evolutionary family lived in central Africa between 6 million and 7 million years ago. In 2001, at a site in Chad, anthropologist Michel Brunet of the...

Molecular switch: protein may influence chronic-pain disorder.(This Week)
April 9, 2005... A cell-surface protein found in the nervous system plays a central role in a chronic-pain condition known as neuropathy, a new study in rodents suggests. In a normal reaction to injury or disease, pain signals activate immune cells in the...

Stellar question: extrasolar planet or failed star?(This Week)
April 9, 2005... Astronomers have dreamed of photographing a planet orbiting a star outside the solar system. Last week, researchers announced that a tiny dot of light next to a young, sunlike star might be that long-sought image. But the discovery could be...

Remote control minds: light flashes direct fruit fly behavior.(This Week)
April 9, 2005... Researchers have exerted a little mind control over fruit flies by installing genetic "remote controls" within the insects' brains. These controls, which make the insects respond to an external flash of ultraviolet light, provide a way for...

Open sesame: portable devices may achieve magnetic resonance views.(This Week)
April 9, 2005... Like modern doctors, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanners don't do house calls. They and related nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) instruments for chemical analysis require that a patient or sample come to a lab or clinic and squeeze into...

Fish din: reef clamor attracts young fish settlers.(This Week)
April 9, 2005... When it comes to real estate on a coral reef, young fish may be looking for noise, noise, noise. Most reef fish spend the first stage of their lives as specks in open water away from any reef. Just how these fish larvae, which resemble...

Color trails: natural dyes in historic textiles get a closer look.(This Week)
April 9, 2005... Chemists have developed a way to extract natural dyes from ancient textiles while preserving the unique chemical characteristics of each dye. The technique enables the researchers to then identify the plant species from which the colorants...

Manuscripts as fossils: population-biology equations estimate medieval texts' likelihood of survival.
April 9, 2005... Through the ages, innumerable texts have been consumed by fire, war, theft, and other disasters. Each ancient or medieval manuscript in existence today has its own story of survival against the odds, whether the document was tucked away in an...

Code of many colors: can researchers see race in the genome?
April 9, 2005... The first in a two-part series on race, biology, and medicine Historian Frank W. Sweet of the University of Florida in Gainesville recounts the classic rags-to-riches tale of Louetta Chassereau, an early 20th-century socialite. As a baby,...

Dusty rejuvenation.(PLANETARY SCIENCE)(Mars exploration)(Brief Article)
April 9, 2005... The Mars rover Spirit just got a windblown reprieve. In January 2004, the rover landed in a dusty crater. Ever since, its solar arrays--its main power source--have been getting dirtier and thus less efficient, limiting Spirit's performance. For...

Plants fix genes using copies from ancestors.(BIOLOGY)
April 9, 2005... Some plants can reinstate genes missing from their own chromosomes but that had been carried by previous generations, according to a new study. These findings seem to violate genetic-inheritance laws that have been accepted for more than a...

Moon story waxes fuller.(ASTRONOMY)(Brief Article)
April 9, 2005... The story of how the moon was born may finally be complete. According to the most widely accepted scenario, a Mars-size rock slammed into the Earth 4.5 billion years ago, spewing material that coalesced into the moon. But where this gigantic...

Lightning creates radiation-safe zone.(EARTH SCIENCE)(Brief Article)
April 9, 2005... A relatively safe region inside the treacherous seas of radiation that surround our planet owes its existence to lightning storms on Earth, scientists have determined. Previous research suggested that radio waves clear out a zone within...

Phages take breaks while ejecting DNA.(BIOLOGY)(Brief Article)
April 9, 2005... The bacteria that prey on animals and plants have their own parasites: a family of viruses, called phages, that infect the microbes by injecting them with long strings of DNA. A new study suggests that the DNA-injection process is more...

DNA tells pigs' tale of diverse ancestry.(GENETICS)(Brief Article)
April 9, 2005... People initially bred wild boars into domesticated pigs in at least seven different parts of Asia and Europe, a new genetic study suggests. The finding counters the widely held view that pigs were domesticated in only two regions, located in...

Detecting cancer in a flash.(BIOMEDICINE)
April 9, 2005... Even at the cellular level, there's a special glow to good health. That's the conclusion of a research team that has demonstrated the ability to distinguish cancer cells from healthy ones with pulses of laser light. To achieve that...

Tense encounters drive a nanomotor.(PHYSICS)(Brief Article)
April 9, 2005... Walking on water is a miracle for people, but it's no sweat for some insects. The key for the bugs is surface tension, the cohesive forces of the liquid's surface molecules that are strong enough to support tiny weights. Now, researchers in...

Lone protein molecule could tip this scale.(METROLOGY)(Brief Article)
April 9, 2005... Physicists developing exquisitely fine-tuned scales for weighing tiny objects have reached an important milestone--a device sensitive enough to detect individual molecules of biologically active proteins. To make their protein scale,...

Tending Fire: Coping with America's Wildland Fires.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
April 9, 2005... TENDING FIRE: Coping with America's Wildland Fires STEPHEN J. PYNE In 2003, California suffered one of its most devastating natural disasters. It wasn't an earthquake but an enormous fire that burned more than 740,000 acres, leveled 3,000...

Astro Turf: The Private Life of Rocket Science.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
April 9, 2005... ASTRO TURF: The Private Life of Rocket Science M.G. LORD This is the story of a rocket laboratory, the world-renowned Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) from a personal perspective. In this memoir, Lord examines the professional lives of a few of the...

Einstein's Cosmos: How Albert Einstein's Vision Transformed our Understanding of Space and Time.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
April 9, 2005... EINSTEIN'S COSMOS: How Albert Einstein's Vision Transformed our Understanding of Space and Time MICHIO KAKU The shadow that Albert Einstein casts is so immense that scientists are still winning Nobel prizes for work stemming from ideas he...

If Dogs Could Talk: Exploring the Canine Mind.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
April 9, 2005... IF DOGS COULD TALK: Exploring the Canine Mind VILMOS CSANYI Author Csanyi asserts that the typical dog probably understands 40 to 50 different verbal phrases. He warns us, however, that anecdotal stories aren't evidence of canine...

Big ideas.(Letter to the Editor)
April 9, 2005... Your article "Life on the Scales" (SN: 2/12/05, p. 106) reminded me that taking a bird's song and transposing it down four octaves makes it sound like a whale's song. The opposite is also true. To hear this, go to http://www.mind.net/music/...

No bargain.(Letter to the Editor)
April 9, 2005... "High costs of CT screening" (SN: 2/19/05, p. 125) overlooks an immeasurable long-term cost of whole-body computed tomography scans: the potential cancers induced by high-dose radiation. Aggressive marketing of CT scans without full disclosure...

Pressure point.(Letter to the Editor)
April 9, 2005... "Against the Migraine" (SN: 2/19/05, p. 119) mentions several possible triggers for migraines, with a patent foramen ovale being one. There is also the change-in-weather trigger, from which I suffer. All the symptoms mentioned in the article...

Egg-citing discovery: dinosaur fossil includes eggshells.(This Week)
April 16, 2005... For the first time, scientists have found eggs with shells inside a dinosaur fossil, strengthening previous conjectures about the ancient reptiles' reproductive physiology. The dinosaur remains were unearthed in southern China from...

Messy mix? Combined vaccine yields fewer antibodies.(This Week)
April 16, 2005... Thanks to modern medicine, children in the United States can look forward to receiving up to 20 vaccinations during early childhood. It's all for a good cause, but try telling that to a baby. Scientists attempting to minimize the number of...

Stone age cutups: deathly rituals emerge at Neandertal site.(This Week)
April 16, 2005... After excavating a cache of Neandertal fossils about l00 years ago at Krapina Cave in what's now Croatia, researchers concluded that incisions on the ancient individuals' bones showed that they had been butchered and presumably eaten by their...

Cosmic primitive: old star sheds light on early stellar formation.(This Week)
April 16, 2005... When the faint star HE1327-2326 was born, the universe was a much simpler place. Stars were few, galaxies were tiny, and heavy elements such as iron were scarce. Now, some 13.5 billion years later, researchers have identified this dim Milky Way...

Built for speed: novel transistor design spurns limits.(This Week)
April 16, 2005... By restructuring a key part of a transistor, engineers in Illinois say that they have captured the world record for the speed at which such devices operate. More important, the new approach opens the door to much greater speeds, perhaps more...

Funny walks: cranes bob, bob, bob along when hunting.(This Week)
April 16, 2005... The jerky neck motions of a whooping crane looking for lunch keep its head still in space about half the time, probably helping the bird to spot food, a video study suggests. When walking, cranes and many other birds thrust their heads...

Rice with a human touch: engineered grain uses gene from people to protect against herbicides.(This Week)
April 16, 2005... A human gene that Japanese researchers have inserted into rice enables the plant to break down a portfolio of chemicals now used on farms to kill weeds. The unusual breadth of that herbicide resistance could circumvent a major shortcoming of...

The race to prescribe: drug for African Americans may debut amid debate.
April 16, 2005... The second in a two-part series on race, biology, and medicine Most modern medical research into race or ethnicity focuses on the disturbingly long list of health disparities among different groups. For example, compared with whites, blacks...

Navigating celestial currents: math leads spacecraft on joy rides through the solar system.(Cover Story)
April 16, 2005... Last April, the Genesis spacecraft began its journey home. It had been parked out in space collecting solar particles for 2 years. Yet even though its job was done, Genesis didn't head straight home. Instead, it took a 3-million-mile detour,...

Blowflies shed mercury at maturity.(ENVIRONMENT)(Brief Article)
April 16, 2005... If an old lady swallows a blowfly, she may be better off ingesting an adult insect than an immature one. That's one implication of the discovery that blowflies, which can absorb mercury from fish carcasses that they feed on as larvae, rid...

A moon with atmosphere.(PLANETARY SCIENCE)(Brief Article)
April 16, 2005... Saturn's tiny moon Enceladus has an atmosphere containing water vapor, observations by the Cassini spacecraft reveal. The source of the atmosphere could be icy volcanic eruptions, geysers, or gases escaping from the frigid moon's surface, NASA...

Blue light keeps night owls going.(BIOLOGY)(blue light against sleepiness)(Brief Article)
April 16, 2005... A study of nine young men suggests that blue light beats back sleepiness and dampens key physiological changes that normally occur in the late evening. Green-yellow light doesn't have the same effect. Blue light, or white light containing it,...

Viagra might rescue risky pregnancies.(MEDICINE)(Brief Article)
April 16, 2005... Roughly one in 20 women develops high blood pressure during pregnancy, a condition known as preeclampsia. Untreated, it can threaten the lives of both mother and baby. A new rodent study now shows promise for limiting preeclampsia's threat with...

Blood hints at autism's source.(BIOCHEMISTRY)
April 16, 2005... Researchers have identified a biochemical peculiarity in the blood of autistic children. The scientists say the finding could lead to earlier diagnosis of this neurological disorder and a better understanding of how certain genes may drive it....

Breath training aids sprint power.(PHYSIOLOGY)(Brief Article)
April 16, 2005... Athletes who perform short, high-intensity activities benefit from training their lungs as well as their arms and legs. A new study points to one reason why. Exercise physiologist Lorrie Brilla of Western Washington University in...

Smelly garlic: a lung tonic?(NUTRITION)(Brief Article)
April 16, 2005... Many people suffer from acute pulmonary hypertension, where blood pressure is selectively elevated in the lungs. The potentially lethal condition can make the right side of the heart work too hard and thus lead to heart failure. This particular...

Meetings.(Calendar)
April 16, 2005... Experimental Biology '05 San Diego, Calif. April 2-6

Electric Universe: The Shocking True Story of Electricity.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
April 16, 2005... David Bodanis We flick a switch and current flows, but many of us have little understanding of how electricity works or its importance in the functioning of the cosmos. This book explains those ideas and tells the stories of key scientists...

Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
April 16, 2005... Malcolm Gladwell In 1983, the Getty Museum in California put a presumably ancient Greek statue through months of scientific and historical analysis and finally declared the object genuine. But when a handful of art experts saw it for the...

Deep Simplicity: Bringing Order to Chaos and Complexity.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
April 16, 2005... John Gribben Order out of chaos--somehow, the universe makes it happen. In a straightforward manner, Gribben examines how various scientific disciplines seek to explain how order arises from disorder. This book outlines the laws and...

The Triumph of Numbers: How Counting Shaped Modern Life.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
April 16, 2005... I. Bernard Cohen In his last work, the late science historian explores how numbers gained importance in both science and everyday life. After a brief examination of the use of numbers in ancient civilizations, Cohen focuses on their...

The Remarkable Life of William Beebe: Explorer and Naturalist.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
April 16, 2005... Carol Grant Gould If Indiana Jones had been a naturalist rather than an archaeologist, be might have been named William Beebe. A socialite and celebritY, Beebe was also one of the foremost scientists of the early 20th century. Before him,...

Ax questions, hard answers.(Letter to the Editor)
April 16, 2005... Another hypothesis for the polish on the Stone Age corundum ax head is that the Stone Age people never had absolutely pure corundum, which indeed would have required diamond to polish ("In the Buff: Stone Age tools may have derived luster from...

Think shrink-wrap.(Letter to the Editor)
April 16, 2005... Early in our history, U.S. citizens ate bushmeat ("Bushmeat on the Menu," SN: 2/26/05, p. 138). We hunted deer, bear, squirrel, rabbit, possum, turkey, pheasant, armadillo, and other wild game. We hunted because it was easier to hunt than to...

It's in the blood.(Letter to the Editor)
April 16, 2005... "Healing secret lies in blood" (SN: 3/5/05, p. 157) appears to suggest that healing of old people could be promoted by young people's blood. Perhaps there is something to the Dracula story after all. Young people give blood for money. Anything...

Extreme matter: mother of all material flows into view.
April 23, 2005... When matter was new in the universe, it was an exotic gas whose components later congealed into the more-ordinary matter made of atoms. At least, that was the story. Now, physicists trying to re-create that gas in an accelerator say that the...

Distant dust: asteroid belt or boiling comet?
April 23, 2005... Astronomers this week announced that they have discovered signs of an asteroid belt circling a sunlike star 41 light-years from Earth. If confirmed, the belt would be the closest known analog to the asteroid belt in the solar system and a...

Ambush ants: beware the moldy patch on that branch.
April 23, 2005... On the plants where they live, tiny tropical ants build fungus platforms and then hide underneath, ready to ambush insects that may be far larger than themselves. The ants use the plant's natural hairs as pillars supporting a hole-riddled...

Fast start: sex readily spreads HIV in infection's first weeks.
April 23, 2005... People with the AIDS virus are many times more infectious to their sexual partners in the weeks or months just after they acquire the virus than they are later on, researchers in Uganda have determined. The study confirms the long-standing...

Frozen in time: gas puts mice metabolically on ice.(hydrogen sulfide gas )
April 23, 2005... Putting people into a state of suspended animation is a mainstay of science fiction, but a new study may have brought the idea closer to reality. By exposing mice to low concentrations of hydrogen sulfide gas in air, researchers slowed the...

Mood brighteners: light therapy gets nod as depression buster.
April 23, 2005... A new scientific era may have dawned for light therapy, a potential depression fighter that has languished in the shadows of anti-depressant medication and psychotherapy for the past 20 years. A research review commissioned by the American...

Double bubble comes off in a pinch.(This Week)(emulsions)(Brief Article)
April 23, 2005... Scientists at Harvard University have nestled droplets inside droplets by squeezing three concentrically arranged streams of fluids into a glass tube. The double droplets could be useful for encapsulating food additives and components of...

Coming storms: method predicts intensity of U.S. hurricane seasons.
April 23, 2005... A new computer model that analyzes summer-wind patterns can predict whether the United States will suffer a damaging hurricane season, according to the scientists who developed the tool. Hurricanes are among nature's most destructive...

Dark influence: most of the universe's matter is out of sight, but not out of mind.(Cover Story)
April 23, 2005... Imagine trying to figure out what's happening in a film from just a few scattered frames near the end. Now, let's make it even more challenging: The star of the movie is invisible as you watch the rest of the characters going about their...