Science News articles from December 2005

Science News archives from December 2005

New view: fossil offers novel look at an ancient bird.(archaeopteryx)
December 3, 2005... A newly described specimen of an ancient creature that most scientists consider the oldest known bird is posed in a way that provides new viewing angles for several body features. Analyses of those traits bolster the notion that the...

Multitasking miniatures: tailor-made particles are versatile.(This Week)
December 3, 2005... A new class of tiny particles fashioned from metal and organic building blocks may lead to novel catalysts and sensors, say the chemists who synthesized the structures. They've created nanoscale and microscale spheres that can contain a diverse...

Arbiter of taste: energy molecule transmits flavor to brain.(This Week)
December 3, 2005... As you sample all the treats that the holiday season has to offer, be thankful for adenosine 5'-triphosphate (ATP). New research suggests that this molecule, typically associated with processing energy in cells, plays a pivotal role in...

Network inoculation: antivirus shield would outrace cyber infections.(This Week)
December 3, 2005... The best way to stop an epidemic might be to start one. That's the gist of a new strategy against computer viruses that was just unveiled by Israeli researchers. In their theoretical approach, when a computer network detects a new virus, it...

Waves of grain: new data lift old model of agriculture's origins.(This Week)
December 3, 2005... A new analysis of the locations and ages of ancient farming sites reinforces the controversial idea that the groups that started raising crops in the Middle East gradually grew in number and colonized much of Europe, replacing many native...

Rare but fatal outcome: four deaths may trace to abortion pill.(This Week)
December 3, 2005... In the 5 years since mifepristone, the so-called abortion pill, was approved in the United States, doctors have reported the deaths of four healthy women shortly after t2hey took the drug, according to a new report. All four women died of toxic...

Face time: bees can tell apart human portraits.(This Week)
December 3, 2005... Honeybees will learn to zoom up to particular human faces in a version of a facial-recognition test used for people, researchers say. Previous studies of bee vision failed to show that the insects could distinguish such subtle patterns,...

A skunk walks into a bar ... fighting beer's fouler flavors.(Cover Story)
December 3, 2005... Beer brewing is among the tastiest of chemical experiments. Problem is, the reactions that begin with the first manipulations of the barley grain don't stop once the beer is in the bottle. The dynamic molecular world in all stored brews...

Valuing nature: when economic payoffs justify conservation.
December 3, 2005... Around the edges of the Mabira Forest Reserve in Uganda, farms and woodlands are locked in a battle, and the woodlands are losing ground. Scores of bird species face an increasingly desperate situation. Yet according to a new economic study,...

Insomniac brains are both asleep and awake.(BIOLOGY)(Brief Article)
December 3, 2005... Have you ever gotten out of bed still tired because you'd been worrying all night? New research suggests that your brain might have been both asleep and awake through those fitful hours. Stress-induced insomnia affects almost a quarter of...

Spurned lovers' brains reflect risk evaluation, pain.(EMOTIONS)(Brief Article)
December 3, 2005... Relationships too often end with feelings of hurt, longing, and craving. A new study suggests that scientists can see those emotions reflected in brain images of lovers who were recently spurned. Three years ago, Lucy Brown of Albert...

Pomegranate juice could fight Alzheimer's.(NUTRITION)(Brief Article)
December 3, 2005... Drinking pomegranate juice has been linked to a host of positive health effects, such as reduced risks of heart disease and cancer. Researchers may soon add another benefit to drinking the deep-red drink: slowing progression of Alzheimer's...

Cognition down in apple-shaped seniors.(PHYSIOLOGY)(Brief Article)
December 3, 2005... An expanding waistline could indicate decreasing cognitive function as people age, according to a new study. Previous studies had identified a link between type 2 diabetes and memory problems. Other research suggested that apple-shaped...

Meetings.
December 3, 2005... Society for Neuroscience 35th Annual Meeting Washington, D.C., November 12-16

The Complete Revised and Updated Cancer Survival Guide: Everything You Must Know and Where to Go for State-of-the-Art Treatment of the 25 Most Common Forms of Cancer.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 3, 2005... THE COMPLETE REVISED AND UPDATED CANCER SURVIVAL GUIDE: Everything You Must Know and Where to Go for State-of-the-Art Treatment of the 25 Most Common Forms of Cancer PETER TEELEY AND PHILIP BASHE Being diagnosed with cancer is no...

Strange New Species: Astonishing Discoveries of Life on Earth.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 3, 2005... STRANGE NEW SPECIES: Astonishing Discoveries of Life on Earth ELIN KELSEY Though most of the world's animals are known, scientists continue to discover new and exotic species. This book reveals how those discoveries are made by researchers...

Beneath the Seven Seas: Adventures with the Institute of Nautical Archaeology.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 3, 2005... BENEATH THE SEVEN SEAS: Adventures with the Institute of Nautical Archaeology GEORGE F. BASS, ED. This compilation of essays guides readers on tours of dozens of the world's most famous shipwrecks and sunken cities. The book begins with an...

Worlds on Fire: Volcanoes on the Earth, the Moon, Mars, Venus, and Io.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 3, 2005... WORLDS ON FIRE: Volcanoes on the Earth, the Moon, Mars, Venus, and Io CHARLES FRANKEL From Kilauea on the island of Hawaii to Gula Mons on Venus, Worlds on Fire provides a fascinating tour of the solar system's major volcanoes. With the...

Death Rays, Jet Packs, Stunts & Supercars: The Fantastic Physics of Film's Most Celebrated Secret Agent.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 3, 2005... DEATH RAYS, JET PACKS, STUNTS & SUPERCARS: The Fantastic Physics of Film's Most Celebrated Secret Agent BARRY PARKER Consider the famous laser in Goldfinger, the jet pack in Thunderball, the X-ray glasses in The world Is Not Enough. Without...

Eye on energy.(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
December 3, 2005... "Cosmic Ray Font: Supernova remnants rev up ions" (SN: 10/1/05, p. 213) is unfortunately murky. It's confusing to state that accelerating charged particles to high speeds "therefore" produces cosmic rays. And what "charged particles"? Is the...

You be the judge.(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
December 3, 2005... In general, a judge is an independent legal expert. To expect a legal expert to be able to determine the validity of the scientific information is no more reasonable than to expect a scientist to be able to do a good job of making legal...

3-D vision: new technique could improve breast cancer screening, diagnosis.(tomosynthesis)
December 10, 2005... An experimental alternative to standard mammography could, by the end of this decade, become an essential tool for spotting breast cancer. The technique, called tomosynthesis, provides radiologists with a three-dimensional view of the breast's...

Beyond hearing: cochlear implants work best when given early.
December 10, 2005... Children born deaf who receive cochlear implants as toddlers show brain activity that's more normal than that of children getting the implants later in childhood, a new report shows. A separate study in animals reveals that the early implants...

Instant nano blocks: one-step process makes trillions of DNA pyramids.
December 10, 2005... As if carrying life's genetic code weren't enough, DNA molecules are in demand these days as raw material for microscopic constructions. For instance, nanotechnologists have fashioned cubic and octahedral cages from the molecules (SN: 2/14/04,...

Red planet express: Mars spacecraft traces a watery tale.
December 10, 2005... A Mars-orbiting spacecraft is providing new details about when and where liquid water, an essential ingredient for life, existed on the planet. The craft's instruments have detected a long-sought group of ancient, water-bearing compounds on...

Mirror cells' fading spark: empathy-related neurons may turn off in autism.
December 10, 2005... The social detachment and isolation that characterize autism may stem, at least in part, from a breakdown of brain cells that have been implicated in people's ability to imitate others and to read their thoughts and feelings. A new...

When worms fly: insect larvae can survive bird guts.
December 10, 2005... Researchers in Spain have shown a novel way for insects to travel--as larval stowaways in the guts of migrating birds. "It's the first time insects have been shown to be carried inside birds" reports Andy J. Green of the Donana Biological...

Best friend's genome: dog's DNA sheds light on human genetics, too.
December 10, 2005... Looking at a pooch can reveal a lot about its owner, and now that includes the owner's genetics. A team headed by scientists in Massachusetts has announced the DNA sequence of a boxer named Tasha, a detailed comparison of the dog's genome with...

The Piraha challenge: an Amazonian tribe takes grammar to a strange place.(Cover Story)
December 10, 2005... When Daniel L. Everett and his wife Keren Everett started spending 6 to 8 months each year with the Piraha people of Brazil's Amazon rain forest in 1977, they hoped to decipher a language that had long stumped missionaries in the region. By...

The sum of the parts: synthetic biologists string genes into living machines.(genetic engineering)
December 10, 2005... In the 30 years or so since its inception, genetic engineering has created quite a legacy, ranging from glow-in-the-dark bunnies to bacteria that churn out life-saving drugs. This now-common lab technique gave biologists their first taste of...

Elevated pesticide threatens amphibians.(endosulfan)(Brief Article)
December 10, 2005... Breezes crossing California's agricultural heartland, the Central Valley, can ferry farm chemicals to elevations high in the Sierra Nevadas. Mountain-water concentrations of endosulfan--a much-used Central Valley insecticide--are strong enough...

Feminized cod on the high seas.(research by Alexander P. Scott of the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science in Weymouth, England)(Brief Article)
December 10, 2005... Male cod in the open ocean are producing vitellogenin, an egg-yolk protein ordinarily made only by females. Vitellogenin "is a highly specific indicator of a fish's exposure to estrogens"--female sex hormones--as well as to pollutants that...

Is Teddy a pollution magnet?(research by Caitlin Corbitt of Chatham College in Pittsburgh and Renee Falconer )(Brief Article)
December 10, 2005... Plush toys can accumulate potentially toxic air pollutants, a new study finds. The toys' stuffing is virtually identical to absorbents used to collect volatile chemicals for lab analysis, notes Caitlin Corbitt of Chatham College in...

Urban fish show perturbed spawning cycle.(research by Lyndal L. Johnson of the National Marine Fisheries Service in Seattle )(Brief Article)
December 10, 2005... Sediment-dwelling English sole living in and around Seattle's urban waterfront exhibit spawning anomalies that might compromise their reproductive success, a team of aquatic biologists finds. The changes indicate chronic exposure to...

Meetings.
December 10, 2005... Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry Baltimore, Md., November 14-17

Sweets spur biodiesel reaction.(research on chemically basic catalyst by Michikazu Hara of the Tokyo Institute of Technology)(Brief Article)
December 10, 2005... A Japanese research team has created an environmentally friendly catalyst for producing biodiesel, an alternative fuel, from renewable sources. The new catalyst is mainly charred sugars. Biodiesel production typically begins with vegetable...

New malaria vaccine is off to promising start.(research by Pierre Druilhe of the Pasteur Institute in Paris)(Brief Article)
December 10, 2005... An experimental vaccine against malaria induces an immune response in people over the course of 1 year similar to that mustered over a lifetime by people living in malarial zones, a study in the November PLoS Medicine shows. People exposed...

Martian dust storm.(research by James Bell of Cornell University)(Brief Article)
December 10, 2005... The orbits of Mars and Earth approach each other about every 2 years. During the most recent near passage, on Oct. 28, the planets came within 69 million kilometers of each other, the closest they'll come until 2018. A Hubble Space Telescope...

Climate: The Force That Shapes Our World and the Future of Life on Earth.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 10, 2005... Fiercer hurricanes, rising sea levels, and extended droughts are all realities in today's climate. Many scientists attribute these changes to global warming, much of which, they hold, is the result of human activities. Others assert that the...

The Gliding Flight: Simple Fun with a Sheet of Paper - Make and Fly 20 Original Paper Airplanes Using No Glue or Cutting.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 10, 2005... With this brief but informative how-to guide, Collins, an award-winning paper-airplane designer, elevates his creations from tools of classroom mischief makers to aeronautical art forms. In a brief introduction on flight dynamics and with a...

The Knife Man: The Extraordinary Life and Times of John Hunter, Father of Modern Surgery.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 10, 2005... Before John Hunter, 18th-century medical orthodoxy consisted of usually ineffective treatments such as bloodletting and the adjustment of "bodily humors." But then Hunter, a foul-mouthed, uncivilized physician in Georgian England, changed much...

The Complete Guide to Prehistoric Life.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 10, 2005... From the creators of the BBC television series Walking with Dinosaurs comes this comprehensive, illustrated encyclopedia to prehistoric animals. Using the same computerized renderings seen in the television series, the authors present these...

Collins Atlas of the Night Sky.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 10, 2005... This collection of telescopic photos and illustrations by uranographer Wil Tirion and lunar cartographer Antonin Rukl covers all the objects visible in the northern and southern skies. AS such, it could become an essential reference for both...

Big Bang bashing.(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
December 10, 2005... The recent discovery of "mature" galaxies at distances corresponding to the remote cosmic past ("Crisis in the Cosmos? Galaxy formation theory is in peril," SN: 10/8/05, p. 235) threatens more than galaxy-formation theory. It threatens to...

From the editor.(Gerald Tape died Nov. 20)(Brief Article)(Editorial)(Obituary)
December 10, 2005... Gerald Tape, who served on the Science Service Board of Trustees for more than 30 years, died Nov. 20. As a physicist during World War II, he worked on developing radar technology. He was later the deputy director of the Brookhaven National...

Greenland's ice loss doubled in 2005.(research by William B. Krabill, a glaciologist at NASA and Leigh A. Stearns, a glaciologist at the University of Maine )
December 17, 2005... A host of observations from satellites, aircraft, and scientists on the ground suggests that Greenland's ice sheet diminished this year at a rate more than twice that seen just a few years ago. By surveying the fringes of Greenland from...

Badger refugees complicate culling.(TB Dilemma)
December 17, 2005... European badgers can catch and spread the form of tuberculosis that strikes mainly cattle, but farmers and animal enthusiasts have debated whether killing badgers would protect herds. Two studies now reconcile earlier contradictory findings....

Tests reveal gene for people's skin color.(research by Keith C. Cheng of the Penn State College of Medicine in Hershey)
December 17, 2005... It's no secret that skin comes in a vast array of shades. However, the genetics that control this phenomenon have remained a mystery. Researchers have now tracked down a gene that they propose plays a major role in determining each person's...

Microreactor produces radioactive probe in a jiffy.
December 17, 2005... A miniature chemical reactor that whips up a diagnostic tool could widen the availability of positron-emission tomography (PET) scans, say the reactor's inventors. PET uses radioactive molecules to image metabolism or other physiological...

Supernovas shed light on dark energy.
December 17, 2005... Eight years ago, astronomers made an astonishing discovery: The rate at which the universe is expanding, assumed to have been steadily slowing since the Big Bang, is in fact speeding up. The entity revving up cosmic expansion remains elusive...

Brain training puts big hurt on intense pain: volunteers learn to translate imaging data into neural-control tool.
December 17, 2005... Preliminary evidence indicates that people can quell either temporary or chronic physical pain by learning to use their minds to reduce activity in a key brain area. Brain-imaging technology now enables individuals to use mental exercises...

New anticoagulants show promise.
December 17, 2005... Two experimental pills could become alternatives to a class of drugs that's used widely to protect surgical patients against potentially fatal blood clots. Currently, many patients need repeated postoperative injections of anticoagulants such...

Peek-a-bubble.(bubble with a hole created)(Brief Article)
December 17, 2005... Engineers have made a gas bubble with a hole in it. Tiny beads surround a sesame-seed-size ring of air that holds its shape in air-saturated water for at least 2 weeks, says Anand Bala Subramaniam of Harvard University. Hundreds of ceramic...

Surface story: inspired by spiral soap films, mathematicians zero in on a novel, economical, and infinite helix.(Cover Story)
December 17, 2005... Dip a flat wire ring into a basin of soapy water. The ring comes out spanned by a taut, iridescent soap film in the form of a thin disk. Its area is smaller than it would be if the surface had peaks and valleys, or even small wrinkles. A...

Changes in the air: variations in atmospheric oxygen have affected evolution in big ways.
December 17, 2005... As any camper who's blown on a flickering ember can tell you, a campfire needs a steady source of air to stay alight. Without enough oxygen, the chemical reactions that release the energy stored in firewood falter and fail. When oxygen is...

Microbe polishes off pollutant.(Pseudomonas pavonaceae)(Brief Article)
December 17, 2005... A soil microbe has been quietly and competently cleaning up what would otherwise be a persistent environmental pollutant, researchers report in the Nov. 8 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Studies had established that the...

Dark shadows.(black holes)(Brief Article)
December 17, 2005... Astronomers are closing in on the dark monster at the center of our galaxy. New radio telescope images indicate that an invisible concentration of material at the Milky Way's core is some 4 million times as heavy as the sun and squeezed into a...

New software aids virtual colonoscopy.(Brief Article)
December 17, 2005... Radiologists can use a new computer program to spot dangerous growths in the colon without probing inside the body, researchers report. The soft ware could make virtual colonoscopy a more dependable alternative to conventional colonoscopy. ...

Shots often don't reach muscle.(injections)(Brief Article)
December 17, 2005... Standard 3-centimeter needles are too short to penetrate the layer of fat in the buttocks of most women and most obese men, body scans reveal. Medications that physicians think they're administering to muscle, therefore, often don't reach that...

Meetings.
December 17, 2005... Radiological Society of North America November 27-December 2 Chicago, Ill.

Knowing: The Nature of Physical Law.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 17, 2005... Most of the major discoveries in the physical sciences have depended on corresponding advances in mathematics. However, Munowitz writes, the difficulty of mathematics often prevents the layperson from fully understanding these physical laws. A...

An Acre of Glass: A History and Forecast of the Telescope.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 17, 2005... In 1609, with a handmade, 20-power telescope, Galileo saw four moons orbiting Jupiter, a discovery that would forever change the science of astronomy. The invention and refinement of the telescope, based on combinations of convex and concave...

Being Caribou.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 17, 2005... In April 2003, wildlife biologist Heuer and filmmaker Leanne Allison, his wife, set out on a journey to document the round-trip migration of the porcupine caribou herd between the Porcupine River in Yukon territory and Alaska's Arctic National...

Bridges: Three Thousand Years of Defying Nature.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 17, 2005... From tree trunks to stone arches to the colossal steel-and-concrete structures of modern times, bridges represent the evolution of human ingenuity, engineering, and aesthetics. Writer Brown examines how the bridge has been changed over time by...

Mighty robots: Mechanical Marvels That Fascinate and Frighten.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
December 17, 2005... When people imagine a robot, it's usually the humanoid servant described in science fiction. But that image is far from robotic reality. Existing robots already perform a variety of tasks, from assembling cars to exploring Mars. Jones, an...

C plus.(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
December 17, 2005... Ewan Cameron, who in 1971 began to collaborate with Linus Pauling on vitamin C and cancer, typically initiated patients with 10 grams per day of vitamin C given intravenously for about 2 weeks, followed by an oral dosage continued indefinitely....

Flight path.(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
December 17, 2005... The discovery of the early raptor Buitreraptor may resolve one puzzle of the dinosaur-bird relationship ("Raptor Line: Fossil finds push back dinosaur ancestry," SN: 10/15/05, p. 243). The late-Jurassic "first bird" Archaeopteryx, seems closely...

More bear facts.(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
December 17, 2005... Nothing was said in "A Galling Business" (SN: 10/15/05, p. 250) about the situation in Canada, where killing bears for their gallbladders and paws is a serious problem. I suggest that you contact TRAFFIC North America and the World Wildlife...

Correction.(LETTERS)(Correction Notice)
December 17, 2005... The Nov. 19 cover image of Saturn's rings and the related image on page 329 of the story "Groovy Science: Cassini gets the skinny on Saturn's rings," (SN: 11/19/05, p. 328) should have been jointly credited to the University of Colorado in...