Science News articles from February 2008

Science News archives from February 2008

Seafloor chemistry: life's building blocks made inorganically.(This Week)
February 2, 2008... Hydrocarbons in the fluids spewing from a set of hydrothermal vents on the seafloor of the central Atlantic were produced by inorganic chemical reactions within the ocean crust, scientists suggest. The finding holds possibly profound...

Dusty clues: study suggests no dearth of Earths.(This Week)
February 2, 2008... Supposedly, there's no place like home. But a new study suggests that earthlike planets orbit or are forming around many, if not most, nearby sunlike stars, providing places where life might have gained a foothold. That conclusion comes...

Spice it up: naked mole-rats feel no pain from peppers, acid.(This Week)(Brief article)
February 2, 2008... If you're ever attacked by an African naked mole-rat, don't bother with pepper spray. The bald little rodents can't feel the burn of capsaicin, the active ingredient in chilies, or the sting of acid, a new study reports. The animals'...

Traveling tubers.(This Week)(natural history)(Brief article)
February 2, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Standard potato lore has long held that the first tubers that came to Europe were from the high Andes (top), while varieties from the Chilean lowlands (middle) didn't arrive until after the devastating blights of the...

Live long and perspire: exercise may slow aging at chromosomal level.(This Week)
February 2, 2008... The long-observed association between exercise and a slightly longer life span may have its origins in DNA maintenance, a new study finds. Researchers report that the ends of chromosomes hold up better in active people than in sedentary...

... And the envelope, please: forty outstanding young scientists move to final round of competition.(This Week)
February 2, 2008... Twenty-six young men and 14 young women cleared the second hurdle on the track to a championship that recognizes exceptional ability in science, engineering, and math--the annual Intel Science Talent Search. Winnowed from 1,602 entrants,...

Warning sign: genetic fragments tag cancer severity.(This Week)
February 2, 2008... A tiny piece of RNA can spell big trouble for some colon cancer patients. Colon cancer patients who have high levels of a microRNA called miR-21 in their tumors don't respond well to standard chemotherapy and have poor prognoses, a new...

The naming of the elephant-shrew.(This Week)(Brief article)
February 2, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] For the first time in more than a century, researchers have found a giant elephant-shrew entirely new to science. The largest such species yet found, Rhynchocyon udzungwensis is somewhat bigger than a gray squirrel....

Biological moon shot: realizing the dream of a Web page for every living thing.
February 2, 2008... Richard Pyle hasn't gotten a congratulatory crate of free diapers. But he's one of the fathers, in a sense, of the first fish species named in 2008. Quintuplet species even. The journal Zootaxa posted descriptions of five damselfish on Jan. 1...

Embracing the dark side: looking back on a decade of cosmic acceleration.
February 2, 2008... On Jan. 12, 1998, just before leaving for his honeymoon, astronomer Adam Riess e-mailed his colleagues that the universe appeared to be completely dark and utterly repulsive. Fortunately, he was talking about a matter of gravity. Riess was...

Smells like DNA.(BIOTECHNOLOGY)(deoxyribonucleic acid)(Brief article)
February 2, 2008... By reshuffling the chemical letters of the genetic code, scientists have made short strands of DNA that can distinguish several different smells, such as explosives and food preservatives. The new artificial-nose technology could eventually...

Fishy flash.(MATERIALS SCIENCE)(crystals in fish skin)(Brief article)
February 2, 2008... The shimmery, metallic sheen of a fish in shallow water may confuse predators or dazzle mates. Now scientists have uncovered clues to how the fish build their bling. Somehow fish alter the growth of the light-reflecting crystals layered in...

Fabulon: looking less fabulous.(ENVIRONMENT)(Brief article)
February 2, 2008... Researchers have tentatively linked polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in people--and their dwellings--with Fabulon, a product used throughout the late 1950s and 1960s as a durable top coat for hardwood floors. During a survey of 120 homes...

Receptor may be cancer accomplice.(MICROBIOLOGY)(Brief article)
February 2, 2008... A receptor protein that shows up on cancerous colon cells might serve as a new target for scientists seeking to derail this malignancy. A study in mice shows that shutting down the receptor slows cancer growth. The receptor protein is...

Very brown sheep have a dark side.(ZOOLOGY)(Brief article)
February 2, 2008... Darker sheep are bigger, but now we learn why they're not better. Soay sheep living wild on the Scottish island of Hirta come in two colors: light brown and dark brown. Researchers have known that the dark sheep are bigger than the light...

New route to insulin-making cells.(MEDICINE)(Brief article)
February 2, 2008... The pancreas has a second way to make cells that produce the hormone insulin, new research on mice confirms. The discovery could eventually lead to new therapies for diabetics. Scientists have known that insulin-producing cells, called beta...

A crack and a fault in paradise.(EARTH SCIENCE)(Manna Loa volcano in Hawaii)(Brief article)
February 2, 2008... Manna Loa, Hawaii's most massive volcano, may be splitting open the Earth's crust. A team of French geologists reached that conclusion after pinpointing the locations of more than 1,000 miniature earthquakes that happened beneath Manna Loa and...

Tasty stalks.(FOOD & NUTRITION)(Brief article)
February 2, 2008... Science has validated what every grandmother knows: Celery makes chicken soup taste better. Tasting the stringy vegetable isn't necessary to enjoy its flavor-enhancing attributes. Tasteless compounds that are captured by the nose actually boost...

Leonardo on Flight.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
February 2, 2008... LEONARDO ON FLIGHT DOMENICO LAURENZA In a time when art, engineering, and natural history were intricately linked, Leonardo da Vinci drew inspiration for his flying machines from the "special effects" used in theatrical performances in...

Proust Was A Neuroscientist.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
February 2, 2008... PROUST WAS A NEUROSCIENTIST JONAH LEHRER The poet Walt Whitman made consciousness biological before scientists did. He wrote, "Behold, the body includes and is the meaning, the main concern, and includes and is the soul." Around a...

The Mind of the Market: Compassionate Apes, Competitive Humans, and Other Tales from Evolutionary Economics.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
February 2, 2008... THE MIND OF THE MARKET: Compassionate Apes, Competitive Humans, and Other Tales from Evolutionary Economics MICHAEL SHERMER Evolution has made people into the jealous, materialistic capitalists they are today. So claims Shermer in this book...

Very Special Relativity: An Illustrated Guide.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
February 2, 2008... VERY SPECIAL RELATIVITY: An Illustrated Guide SANDER BAIS Einstein's theory of special relativity charmed some physicists immediately, and the general public soon after. More than a century later, guides to the topic are still in demand....

Alphabet of Insects.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
February 2, 2008... ALPHABET OF INSECTS BARBIE HEIT SCHWAEBER Small, weird, and colorful--curious kids love bugs. With a bit of encouragement, that interest can go from destructive (i.e., frying ants under a magnifying glass) to educational. Alphabet of...

Eye for an eagle.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
February 2, 2008... The photo illustrating "Hatch a Thief" (SN: 12/15/07, p. 372) does not show a golden eagle. The bill of a golden eagle is black on the outer half and pale blue at the base, and the feathers on the back of its head are bright tawny. It could be...

Fast and faster.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
February 2, 2008... I was disappointed to see optical quantum computers described as "exponentially faster than ordinary computers" ("15 x 3 = 5: Photons do their first quantum math," SN: 12/8/07, p. 356). Despite frequent misuse in the lay press, "exponentially"...

Correction.(LETTERS)(Correction notice)
February 2, 2008... Correction "Clearly Concerning" (SN: 9/29/07, p. 202) stated that daughters of a rat that had been exposed to bisphenol A (BPA) during pregnancy were more sensitive to carcinogens than "unexposed litter mates." The correct comparison should...

Growing up to Prozac: drug makes new neurons mature faster.(This Week)
February 9, 2008... Peter Pan won't be pleased to hear the latest theory about how Prozac works. A new study shows that the antidepressant stimulates growth of neurons in the hippocampus and speeds the young brain cells toward maturity. The maturation process...

Finding fault: trace of old subduction zone found in Italy.(This Week)
February 9, 2008... A 200-kilometer-long, 500-meter-thick layer of rocks now lying high in the mountains of Italy is recognized as the remains of an erosive subduction zone that was active under the sea millions of years ago, scientists say. The first-of-its-kind...

Whales drink sounds: hearing may use an ancient path.(This Week)
February 9, 2008... Whales may receive sounds through the throat in addition to taking them in through the jaw, a new study finds. Understanding where sound enters the head of the Cuvier's beaked whale could point to the original acoustic pathway for all whales...

Tots who tote: babies show neural signs of budding number sense.(This Week)
February 9, 2008... A 3-month-old baby can't help you with your taxes, but nonetheless possesses a brain-based grasp of numbers, a new study indicates. Previous studies suggested that, by 4 1/2 months, infants detect changes in the number of items in a set....

Pot downer: marijuana users risk gum disease.(This Week)(Clinical report)
February 9, 2008... It's a bummer, man. Young adults who regularly smoke marijuana face an increased risk of severe gum disease, scientists report. The study is the first to link pot smoking to a health danger that's more commonly associated with tobacco. ...

Spread of nonnative fish mirrors human commerce.(This Week)(Brief article)
February 9, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The percentage of foreign fish in rivers is strongly linked to nearby economic activity, according to a new study of 1,055 river basins worldwide. Nonnative plants and animals can outcompete local species and damage...

Wish list: FY '09 budget proposal ups physical sciences.(This Week)
February 9, 2008... On Feb. 4, President Bush announced his proposed research and development (R&D) spending blueprint for 2009. It echoed his embattled plan from last year. Federal support for R&D, totaling $146.9 billion, would pump up funds for physical...

Faulty fountains of youth: adult stem cells may contribute to aging.(Cover story)
February 9, 2008... Skin sags. Hair grays. Organs don't work quite like they used to. A gradual wearing out and running down of the body's tissues seems an inherent part of growing older. Rejuvenation of skin, muscles, and other body parts naturally declines with...

Dawn of the city: excavations prompt a revolution in thinking about the earliest cities.
February 9, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] A massive earthen mound rises majestically and rather mysteriously above agricultural fields in northeastern Syria. From a distance, the more than 130-foot-tall protrusion looks like a jagged set of desolate hills....

Diabetes drug and conflicts of interest.(SCIENCE & SOCIETY)(Brief article)
February 9, 2008... So much for confidential peer review. Last May, a controversial paper in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) reported that a popular diabetes drug--rosiglitazone, sold as Avandia--substantially hikes a user's risk of heart attack...

Chomping on uranium.(CHEMISTRY)(Brief article)
February 9, 2008... To a chemist's eye, uranium has always looked dull. Not anymore. Natural uranium mostly occurs as an oxide. In water, the oxide readily dissolves in the form of a uranyl ion--a positively charged molecule made of one uranium and two oxygen...

Early dioxin exposure hinders sperm later.(ENVIRONMENT)(Brief article)
February 9, 2008... An explosion at a chemical factory near Seveso, Italy, in 1976 exposed factory workers and local residents to the pollutant dioxin, presenting an opportunity to track how exposure at different ages affects sperm quality. Now, results from...

The Black Death chose its victims selectively.(ARCHAEOLOGY)(Brief article)
February 9, 2008... The Black Death, a bacterial epidemic that wiped out more than 1 in 3 Europeans from 1347 to 1351, was not an equal-opportunity destroyer. A new report finds that the disease disproportionately took the lives of physically frail people, rather...

Zeus' altar drew early visitors.(ARCHAEOLOGY)(Brief article)
February 9, 2008... Long after his heyday as the head god of ancient Greece, Zeus has thrown a curveball rather than a lightning bolt at scientists. New excavations of the Sanctuary of Zeus at Greece's Mount Lykaion indicate that religious activity occurred there...

Elizabeth Blackburn and the Story of Telomeres: Deciphering the Ends of DNA.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
February 9, 2008... ELIZABETH BLACKBURN AND THE STORY OF TELOMERES: Deciphering the Ends of DNA CATHERINE BRADY In 1976, molecular biologist Elizabeth Blackburn discovered telomeros when she noticed a series of repeated cytosine bases at the tips of...

The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
February 9, 2008... THE LUCIFER EFFECT: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil PHILIP ZIMBARDO Psychologist Zimbardo directed the Stanford Prison Experiment, in which college students were randomly assigned to act as either guards or inmates. The study was...

The Physics of Nascar: How to Make Steel + Gas + Rubber = Speed.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
February 9, 2008... THE PHYSICS OF NASCAR: How to Make Steel + Gas + Rubber: Speed DIANDRA LESLIE-PELECKY Dedicated to the men and women who work in garages and race shops, this book focuses on the physics that experienced motor heads intrinsically understand...

Native Ferns, Moss, and Grasses.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
February 9, 2008... NATIVE FERNS, MOSS, AND GRASSES WILLIAM CULLINA In contrast to their 50-foot-tall predecessors that towered beside the dinosaurs, modern day club-mosses creep along the forest floor from the tropics to the tundra. Gardeners may wish to add...

Your Developing Baby: Conception to Birth.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
February 9, 2008... YOUR DEVELOPING BABY: Conception to Birth PETER M. DOUBILET, CAROL B. BENSON, AND ROANNE WEISMAN Having answered questions for anxious parents-to-be for decades, radiologists Doubilet and Benson decided to write a book about babies in the...

Small, or just invisible?(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
February 9, 2008... "Heavy Find: Weighty neutron stars may nile out exotic core" (SN: 1/12/08, p. 20) says that the companion star of the pulsar PSR B1516+02B must be "tiny" because it cannot be seen. Isn't it possible that the companion is made of dark matter? Is...

Defining 'pristine'.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
February 9, 2008... "Prairie Revival: Researchers put restoration to the test" (SN: 12/15/07, p. 376) talks of restoring prairies to an earlier state, but if the concepts summarized in Charles C. Mann's book 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus...

Flying deaf? Earliest bats probably didn't echolocate.(This Week)
February 16, 2008... Fossils of a cardinal-sized creature recently unearthed in western Wyoming suggest that primitive bats developed the ability to fly before they could track their prey with biological sonar. More than one-fifth of living mammal species are...

Animal origins: genome reveals early complexity.(This Week)(choanoflagellates)
February 16, 2008... A microscopic spermlike organism contained many of the same tools for cell-to-cell communication found in animals today, two new reports find. Analysis of DNA from a choanoflagellate, the closest known living nonanimal relative of animals,...

Going the distance: galaxies may hail from early universe.(This Week)
February 16, 2008... Using a cosmic magnifying glass to peer into the deepest reaches of space, two teams of astronomers have discovered tiny galaxies that may be among the most distant known. Images suggest that one of the galaxies is so remote that the light now...

Drug running: bust nets suspects in counterfeit antimalaria trade.(This Week)
February 16, 2008... Over the past decade, researchers have documented the sale of fake antimalaria tablets in Southeast Asia. A new report traces the source of some of these drugs to southern China, and police there have located an illicit drug "factory" and...

Swell, a pain lesson: gut microbes needed for immune development.(This Week)
February 16, 2008... Bacteria in your belly can be a pain in the neck, knee, or tuchus. Beneficial microbes that live in the colon are responsible for developing immune system responses that lead to inflammation and pain, a new study in mice shows. People and...

Where stars are born.(This Week)(Brief article)
February 16, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Some 300 young stars shine through the dust in this infrared portrait of the main cloud of a nearby star-forming region called Rho Ophiuchi. (When viewed in visible light, the stars remain hidden in the dust.) In...

New World stopover: people may have entered the Americas in stages.(This Week)
February 16, 2008... Think of it as the ultimate travel delay. Asian migrants first reached the northwestern edge of the Americas as early as 40,000 years ago but then had to wait at least 20,000 years before heading south into the continent's heart, a new genetic...

Don't like it hot.(This Week)(king penguin population; climate change effects)(Brief article)
February 16, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] As climate change raises seawater temperatures, king penguin populations could shrink, say researchers. Since 1999, implanted ID tags like those for dogs have let researchers monitor bird family life on the Crozet...

Weighty evidence: the link between obesity, metabolic hormones, and tumors brings the promise of new targets for cancer therapies.
February 16, 2008... Living large can mean dying large, as familiar reminders about obesity's link to cardiovascular disease and diabetes repeatedly emphasize. But those warnings often overshadow another threat from obesity: cancer. Excess weight accounts for 14...

Extreme measures: Atom interferometry's precision could make it the Swiss Army knife of physics.
February 16, 2008... In spring 2010, the military plans to embark on a road trip across the country to test a new way of navigating. Instead of taking a path marked by a dog-eared road atlas, a compass, or even global positioning satellites, the vehicle will follow...

More evidence that flies sleep like people.(NEUROSCIENCE)(fruit flies)(Brief article)
February 16, 2008... A common brain chemical is enough to keep a fruit fly up at night. Scientists know that the chemical, a neurotransmitter called GABA, is important for the human sleep cycle. But a new study is the first to show the chemical also controls...

Bird fads weaken sexual selection.(ZOOLOGY)(lark buntings)(Brief article)
February 16, 2008... Every year, there's a new fashion pick for the hot male. With lark buntings, that is. A study of style among birds adds new dimensions to the understanding of how female taste drives the evolution of male charms. This process of sexual...

Nanocrystal.(NANOTECHNOLOGY)(Brief article)
February 16, 2008... Using DNA as a sort of Velcro, two separate teams of scientists have created what may be the first nanomaterials that assemble themselves into ordered 3-D structures. The techniques may enable the creation of crystals with novel properties. ...

Heed your elders, survive a tsunami.(SCIENCE & SOCIETY)(community-based education and awareness programs )(Brief article)
February 16, 2008... An oral tradition passed down among islanders in the South Pacific--"run to high ground after an earthquake'--saved many lives during a tsunami last year and illustrates the benefits that community-based education and awareness programs can...

Caffeine intake tied to miscarriage.(BIOMEDICINE)(Report)(Brief article)
February 16, 2008... Pregnant women who consume two or more cups of coffee per day face a higher miscarriage risk than women who avoid caffeine, a study finds. In the late 1990s, researchers at the Kaiser Foundation Research Institute in Oakland, Calif.,...

Handbook to Life in the Aztec World.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
February 16, 2008... HANDBOOK TO LIFE IN THE AZTEC WORLD MANUEL AGUILAR-MORENO King Cuauhtemoc, the last Aztec emperor, was defeated by the Spanish Army in 1521. After the conquest, monastic orders arrived in Mexico and the remaining native peoples were...

The Thief at the End of the World: Rubber, Power, and the Seeds of Empire.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
February 16, 2008... THE THIEF AT THE END OF THE WORLD: Rubber, Power, and the Seeds of Empire JOE JACKSON When Henry wickham heard about a kind of tree that produced strong and durable rubber, he ventured into Amazonian jungles in search of it. Rubber was...

Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
February 16, 2008... PLAN B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization LESTER R, BROWN As president of Earth Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., Brown has been analyzing the interaction between environmental and economic trends for decades. In this book, the third...

The Little Book of Pandemics.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
February 16, 2008... THE LITTLE BOOK OF PANDEMICS PETER MOORE Hypochondriacs and germophobes may want to look for a less terrifying bedtime read--perhaps something by Stephen King. Moore's breezy catalog of pestilence features the world's most notorious...

Red Prometheus: Engineering and Dictatorship in East Germany, 1745-1770.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
February 16, 2008... RED PROMETHEUS: Engineering and Dictatorship in East Germany, 1745-1770 DOLORES L, AUGUSTINE The effect of government on science might be most transparent when research is conducted under a dictatorship. Technological progress was an ideal...

Inert placebo?(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
February 16, 2008... Regarding "Getting the Red Out" (SN: 1/19/08, p. 85): While drug companies wish to market their products, my attention is drawn to the fact that I in 8 of the control group of psoriasis patients was cured by placebo effect. Who will investigate...

Time of death.(LETTERS)(mammoths)(Letter to the editor)(Brief article)
February 16, 2008... "Struck from above" (SN: 1/5/08, p. 14) suggested yet a second possibility leading to the decline or extinction of the mammoths in the region of the apparent iron micrometeorite-shower impact, which drove the metallic particles into the sides...

Survival of the bravest.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
February 16, 2008... There is little mystery why some female fishing spiders are so aggressive that they eat their suitors before mating can take place ("Not So Spineless," SN: 1/5/08, p. 10). It would take a very bold male to court a female knowing he is going to...

Benign--not: unexpected deaths in probiotics study.(This Week)
February 23, 2008... Prescribing "good" bugs for the gut--it may sometimes be bad medicine. That's what Dutch doctors have concluded after reviewing the findings of a novel treatment in people with acute pancreatitis. The researchers knew that some of...

Going down: climate change, water use threaten Lake Mead.(This Week)
February 23, 2008... If climate changes as expected and future water use goes unchecked, there's a 50 percent chance that Lake Mead--one of the southwestern United States' key reservoirs--will become functionally dry in the next couple of decades, a new study...

Stellar switch: sun not alone in making magnetic flip-flops.(This Week)(observation of tau Bootis)
February 23, 2008... It's a topsy-turvy world out there and astronomers have new evidence to prove it. Researchers have for the first time documented that a star other than the sun flips its magnetic poles. The magnetic reversal observed on the nearby star tau...

Eye protection: antibiotic knocks back blinding disease.(This Week)(trachoma)(Clinical report)
February 23, 2008... Medicating an entire village twice a year can hamper a scourge that has blinded millions of people in developing countries, a study in Ethiopia shows. The bacterial eye disease trachoma was wiped out in the United States and much of the...

On top of words: spatial language spurs kids' reasoning skills.(This Week)
February 23, 2008... Think before you speak may be apt advice, but new research suggests that speaking first fosters the ability to think later. Studies of spatial reasoning in deaf children support the idea that words help people encode certain concepts, and also...

Defining toxic: federal agencies look to cells, not animals, for chemical testing.(This Week)
February 23, 2008... Government scientists are launching an ambitious collaboration to shift the testing of potentially toxic chemicals away from animals to methods that use high-speed automated robots. The robots would test chemicals on human cells at various...

Internet seduction: online sex offenders prey on at-risk teens.(This Week)
February 23, 2008... Widespread fears that online sexual predators mainly target naive children are largely inaccurate, according to a new study of Internet-initiated sex crimes. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Instead, the vast majority of online sex offenders are...

Energy in motion: how the nanomachines of life harvest randomness to do the cells' work.
February 23, 2008... Occasionally, scientists stumble upon what seems to be a free lunch. But they re not concerned about possibly violating the laws of economics. It would be much more shocking to break the laws of physics. To physicists, the no-free-lunch...

Jelly propulsion: studies of medusan motion reveal secrets of the Earth's first muscle-powered swimmers.(Cover story)
February 23, 2008... From the Jetsons to James Bond, flying via jet pack has become an icon of the futuristic way to travel. But jet propulsion is actually older than the Flintstones. It's a standard means of locomotion for jellyfish, the earliest animals to swim...

Birds network too.(COMPLEX SYSTEMS)(flocks)(Brief article)
February 23, 2008... On winter evenings in some southern European towns, tens of thousands of starlings congregate over their roosts. Above the ruins of Rome's ancient Baths of Diocletian, huge black clouds of starlings assemble and continually morph into new...

Cancer drug limits MS relapses.(BIOMEDICINE)(rituximab; multiple sclerosis)(Drug overview)(Brief article)(Clinical report)
February 23, 2008... The anticancer drug rituximab thwarts inflammatory nerve damage in the brain and curbs relapses in people with multiple sclerosis (MS), a study suggests. Rituximab, marketed as Rituxan by Genentech and Biogen Idec, is a synthetic antibody....

It takes a village of proteins.(CELL BIOLOGY)(Brief article)
February 23, 2008... When a nerve cell in the brain sprouts a new "tentacle" to forge a connection with a neighbor, the proteins in the budding arm differ from those in the cell's body, a new study shows. Using techniques from the burgeoning field of...

From China, the tiniest pterodactyl.(PALEONTOLOGY)(Nemicolopterus crypticus)(Brief article)
February 23, 2008... Researchers excavating the fossil-rich rocks of northeastern China have discovered another paleontological marvel: a flying reptile the size of a sparrow. The tiny, toothless creature, dubbed Nemicolopterus crypticus--meaning "hidden...

Organic ring around nearby star.(ASTRONOMY)(HR 4796A)(Brief article)
February 23, 2008... Astronomers have known since 1991 that a ring of dust, a likely vestige of planet formation, surrounds the nearby star HR 4796A. Researchers now report the first evidence that the ring contains complex organic molecules. Alycia Weinberger...