Science News articles from April 2008

Science News archives from April 2008

Without substance: ADHD meds don't up kids' drug abuse risk.(This Week)( attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder)
April 5, 2008... Stimulants have long been prescribed to children diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD. Over the past decade, child psychiatrists have debated the long-term potential for these medications to trigger drug abuse. Two...

Caught in the act? Images may reveal planetary birth.(This Week)
April 5, 2008... They might be planets. Peering into disks of gas and dust that surround young stars, two teams of astronomers have for the first time imaged dusty clumps that could be planets in the making. Material within the disks, ubiquitous around...

Night flights: migrating moths may use a nighttime compass.(This Week)
April 5, 2008... It was a dark and windy night, but millions of moths migrating over Britain could still tell which way they were going. Radar showed that silver Y moths heading south for winter selected winds sweeping them in the right general direction,...

Curbing chemo: fasting cushions drug's side effects in mice.(This Week)(chemotherapy)
April 5, 2008... A new study in mice suggests a connection between short-term starvation and the ability to tolerate chemotherapy. Starving cancer-ridden mice for two days sent the animals' bodies into a "maintenance mode" that protected their healthy...

Salty old cellulose: tiny fibers found in ancient halite deposits.(This Week)
April 5, 2008... Researchers have unearthed the planet's oldest-known intact biological macromolecules, microscopic bits of cellulose from 253-million-year-old salt deposits in the southwestern United States. The remarkable preservation of the material...

Traveling toxin: Botox may hitch a ride on nerve cells.(This Week)
April 5, 2008... Botox can make your face muscles stay put, but it may not stay put in your face. Evidence from experiments with rodents suggests that the neurotoxin can cruise along nerve cells and remain active beyond the injection site. Understanding...

Take a breath: fatty substance may play role in cystic fibrosis.(This Week)
April 5, 2008... Accumulation of a fatty compound called ceramide in the lungs could set the stage for the chronic lung infections of cystic fibrosis, a study in mice suggests. The finding offers a new twist on the still-unresolved course of this hereditary...

Comb jellies take root in a new tree of animal life.(This Week)(Brief article)
April 5, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Amorphous, gutless, and brainless, simple sponges were the first multicellular animals. That's what scientists have said for a century. Now a team of biologists suggests demoting sponges and placing comb jellies at...

Quantum cocoon: diamonds are a physicist's--and perhaps quantum computing's--best friend.(Cover story)
April 5, 2008... Diamond is cool--even at room temperature. The stiff crystalline structure that makes diamond nature's hardest material can shield an atom from heat vibrations--not forever, but a lot longer than in other materials. Physicists have now...

You, in a dish: cultured human cells could put lab animals out of work for chemical and drug testing.
April 5, 2008... At 8 o'clock on a March morning last year, doctors at Northwick Park Hospital in London began injecting six healthy men with an experimental arthritis drug. It was the drug's first safety trial in humans, and it had passed all the necessary...

High C[O.sub.2]--a gourmet boon for crop pest.(BIOLOGY)(Brief article)
April 5, 2008... Increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide could weaken soybean defenses--and be the best news Japanese beetles have had in a long time. Two new papers suggest that the higher C[O.sub.2] concentrations predicted for 2050 will mean extra...

Microbes weigh in on obesity.(PUBLIC HEALTH)
April 5, 2008... Overweight children host intestinal bacteria as babies that are different from those hosted by other kids, a new study finds. The results, which suggest that some gut microbes may protect against developing obesity, could lead to new approaches...

New drug curbs rheumatoid arthritis in adults, children.(BIOMEDICINE)(Brief article)
April 5, 2008... A novel drug that takes a narrow approach to quelling inflammation might be just the ticket for people with rheumatoid arthritis who react poorly to broad-spectrum medications, a new trial from Austria indicates. The drug, called...

Tibetan Plateau history gets a lift.(EARTH SCIENCE)(Brief article)
April 5, 2008... The Tibetan Plateau, a land mass nearly the size of the lower half of the United States, was thrust skyward when the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates collided about 50 million years ago. But existing models of the order of events following...

Squid beaks are hardly soft.(MATERIALS SCIENCE)(Brief article)
April 5, 2008... Although "mollusk" comes from the Latin word for "soft" squid beaks are so hard they can crack a fish's spine with one bite. Yet somehow, a squid's soft-tissue mouth can clench the beak without cutting itself--something akin to holding the...

Rare mutations tied to schizophrenia.(GENETICS)(Brief article)
April 5, 2008... DNA mutations that likely disrupt brain development occur at relatively high rates in people with schizophrenia, according to data jointly reported by two research teams. These genetic mutations, many of which are critically situated in...

What is Life? Investigating the Nature of Life in the Age of Synthetic Biology.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
April 5, 2008... WHAT IS LIFE? Investigating the Nature of Life in the Age of Synthetic Biology ED REGIS Physicist Erwin Schrodinger's 1944 book--the first to be titled What is Life?--reportedly helped inspire the discoverers of the structure of DNA. Since...

The Night Olympic Team: Fighting to Keep Drugs Out of the Games.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
April 5, 2008... THE NIGHT OLYMPIC TEAM: Fighting to Keep Drugs Out of the Games CAROLINE HATRON Steven Elliott, who led the Amgen team that created the endurance-boosting drug NESP (also known as darbepoetin alfa and Aranesp), was shocked at the results...

The Music of Pythagoras.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
April 5, 2008... THE MUSIC OF PYTHAGORAS KITTY FERGUSON Anyone who has taken--and passed--high school geometry knows the Pythagorean theorem: In a right triangle, the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides. But...

Molecules that Changed the World.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
April 5, 2008... MOLECULES THAT CHANGED THE WORLD K.C. NICOLAOU AND TAMSYN MONTAGNON Chemists aren't afraid to show off their love for molecules. Some wear chemistry-themed jewelry, including necklace pendants shaped like the hexagon and pentagon of...

Wolfsnail: A Backyard Predator.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
April 5, 2008... WOLFSNAIL: A Backyard Predator SARAH C. CAMPBELL AND RICHARD P. CAMPBELL A snail may seem an unlikely candidate for most ferocious predator, but the wolfsnail certainly deserves consideration. The Campbells begin the snail's story on a...

Follow the glow.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
April 5, 2008... "State of the Universe: Microwave glow powers cosmic insights" (SN: 3/15/08, p. 163) brings up a question. This glow should be stronger in one direction, which can point us to the center of the universe. Is this possible? DONALD BURR,...

Nothing to write home about.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
April 5, 2008... Regarding "Black Hole of Light" (SN: 3/8/08, p. 149): A black hole is in a geometrical sense an end to the universe. If we picture the universe using Euclidean geometry, we can imagine going straight out forever. As we approach a black hole,...

Correction.(Correction notice)
April 5, 2008... Correction An editing error introduced a mistake in "Small Wonders: Tiny islanders elevate 'hobbit' debate" (SN: 3/15/08, p. 165). The statement that Robert B. Eckhardt of Pennsylvania State University in University Park says the Palau...

The curtain goes up--on the new science news.(From the Publisher)
April 12, 2008... Even the longest running and most successful show on Broadway occasionally needs a facelift. In show business that often means changes in the cast, perhaps new lead actors and refurbished sets, giving a much-loved and familiar show a fresh...

Antibiotic alligator: promising proteins lurk in reptile blood.(This Week)
April 12, 2008... Researchers hunting for new antibiotics might get some aid from gator blood. Scientists are zeroing in on snippets of proteins found in American alligator blood that kill a wide range of disease-causing microbes and bacteria, including the...

Body and brain: possible link between inflammation and bipolar disorder.(This Week)
April 12, 2008... Bipolar disorder scrawls a molecular John Hancock across the brains of some people. The signature is sometimes visible even before symptoms start, researchers in the Netherlands report. A team led by Hemmo Drexhage, a clinical immunologist...

Virus reprise: mumps outbreak in 2006 was largest in 20 years.(This Week)
April 12, 2008... Despite the availability of a vaccine to prevent it, mumps has cropped up in the United States, Europe and Canada several times in recent years. U.S. researchers now report that 2006 was the worst year for mumps since the mid-1980s. The...

Stem cell snag: implanted cells may show signs of Parkinson's.(This Week)
April 12, 2008... For the first time, researchers have found evidence that Parkinson's disease might spread to healthy nerve cells implanted into a patient's brain. In postmortem studies, researchers found that a small minority of implanted cells in three...

Einstein's invisible hand: is relativity making metal act like a noble gas?(This Week)(Albert Einstein)
April 12, 2008... Superheavy element 114 should be a metal. Controversial data from an experiment in Dubna, Russia, suggest instead that effects from Einstein's theory of relativity might make the element's chemistry closer to that of a noble gas, like radon. If...

All in the family: for some animals, the ideal mate is a brother, sister or cousin.
April 12, 2008... In late March, as winter unclenches its frigid grip on upstate New York, a spotted salamander's thoughts turn fleetingly to love. After early spring rains soak the forests where the salamanders live, thousands of the slimy little creatures...

Out of thin air: scientists pursue nitrogen fixers with an aim to harness their secrets--and feed the world.
April 12, 2008... Air is a big tease. Nothing against oxygen, of course, but air is 78 percent nitrogen. Nitrogen is often the deal-breaker for life on Earth, the nutrient that sets the limit for how much of what grows where. Yet even a bonanza of airborne...

Robin stole credit for Batman's deeds.(ECOLOGY)(Brief article)
April 12, 2008... It's not just birds that control insects in tropical forests and farmland. Bats may be doing at least as much of the work, according to two new field studies. The abundance of caterpillars, beetles and other arthropods in tropical...

Peruvian site yields a golden discovery.(ARCHAEOLOGY)(Brief article)
April 12, 2008... Archaeologists may not be fashion divas, but they dig antique jewelry. Consider the discovery of 4,000-year-old gold and stone beads in southeastern Peru. These crafted items, the oldest examples of worked gold in the Americas by about 600...

Refuge for the resilient.(ENVIRONMENT)(Brief article)
April 12, 2008... Lovely yet high-maintenance, vulnerable reefs may not survive global warming, despite labor-intensive conservation efforts. More focus should be on creating and protecting marine refuges in areas that won't collapse when oceans warm, a new...

Solving a cosmic ray conundrum.(ASTRONOMY)(Brief article)
April 12, 2008... Astronomers say they have solved a puzzle about the most energetic particles that smash into Earth. Known as ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays, these particles, mostly protons, each pack as much punch as a fast-pitched baseball. According to a...

Britain's biggest meteorite strike.(EARTH SCIENCE)(Brief article)
April 12, 2008... An unusual layer of rocks found along Britain's northwestern coast formed from debris thrown out of a crater during a meteorite strike more than 1 billion years ago, geologists say. The Stac Fada stratum, long thought to be of volcanic...

Trees: A Visual Guide.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
April 12, 2008... TREES: A Visual Guide TONY RODD AND JENNIFER STACKHOUSE Trees vary drastically in appearance and characterize a variety of landscapes. Spanning fern forests to mangrove swamps, this volume is a gorgeous and informative guide to the arboreal...

Head Cases: Stories of Brain Injury and Its Aftermath.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
April 12, 2008... HEAD CASES: Stories of Brain Injury and Its Aftermath MICHAEL PAUL MASON More than 5 million Americans live with permanent disability resulting from brain injury. More than 90,000 have an injury severe enough to require an...

Volcano: A Visual Guide.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
April 12, 2008... VOLCANO: A Visual Guide DONNA O'MEARA Volcanoes have catastrophic power. An eruption can transform the landscape and destroy surrounding life. Yet, at the same time, volcanoes are beautiful. In this book of stunning photographs,...

The Puzzle of the Platypus--and Other Explorations of Science in Action.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
April 12, 2008... THE PUZZLE OF THE PLATYPUS--and Other Explorations of Science in Action JACK MYERS AND JOHN RICE Created for 9- to 12-year-olds, the stories (and the art by Rice) in this book illustrate how researchers have used science to solve...

What Bugged the Dinosaurs? Insects, Disease, and Death in the Cretaceous.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
April 12, 2008... WHAT BUGGED THE DINOSAURS? Insects, Disease, and Death in the Cretaceous GEORGE POINAR JR. AND ROBERTA POINAR Disease may have played a pivotal role in ending the reign of dinosaurs. That's the basic premise behind this book...

Dark star.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
April 12, 2008... In "From Dark Matter to Light: New models of galaxy formation show the gastro in physics" (SN: 3/22/08, p. 186), Ron Cowen says that gas is where the action is since dark matter predominantly responds to only gravity. Because dark matter...

Chemical mis-formula.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
April 12, 2008... "Rotten Remedy: Hydrogen sulfide joins the list of the body's friendly, if foul, gases" (SN: 3/8/08, 19. 152) shows the formula for sodium hydrosulfide as Na[H.sub.2]S. Would it not be more accurate to present it as NaHS? G. DAVID GRUBBS,...

Respect the past.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
April 12, 2008... I feel that Rachel Ehrenberg was entirely too glib in "Digging that Maya blue" (SN: 3/1/08, 19. 134). The description of an ancient Mayan religious ritual as "plucking the hearts from humans and tossing the bodies into the sacred cenote" is...

Correction.(LETTERS)(Correction notice)
April 12, 2008... Correction Due to misinformation obtained during an interview, "Weather maker" (SN: 3/15/08, p. 164) reported that upward wind velocities due to convection over the Gulf Stream are as high as 40 centimeters per second. Actually, the peak speed...