Science News articles from January 2008

Science News archives from January 2008

New task: malaria drug might inhibit some cancers.(This Week)
January 5, 2008... In the 1970s and 1980s, researchers in Tanzania distributed millions of doses of chloroquine to children as part of a 5-year malaria-prevention project. While the study yielded only mixed results against that disease, the researchers noticed a...

Dear reader of Science News.(LETTER FROM THE PUBLISHER)(Society for Science and the Public)
January 5, 2008... I am proud to give you the scoop on some "science news": Science Service next week becomes Society for Science & the Public (SSP). The nonprofit organization Science Service was founded in 1921 to provide more and better information about...

wins independent press award.(Science News Magazine)(Brief article)
January 5, 2008... Each week, this magazine distills "the latest trends and findings in the ever-expanding world of science into must-know information." Those aren't our words, but part of the explanation that the Utne Reader offered for naming Science News its...

Plowing the ancient seas: iceberg scours found off South Carolina.(This Week)
January 5, 2008... Recent sonar surveys off the southeastern coast of the United States have detected dozens of broad furrows on the seafloor--trenches that were carved by icebergs during the last ice age, researchers suggest. The channels, roughly parallel...

Twinkle, twinkle: dark matter may have lit up first stars.(This Week)
January 5, 2008... The earliest stars in the universe might have been beasts of a different nature than modern stars, a new model suggests. While nuclear reactions between ordinary chemical elements fuel the fire of stars like Earth's own sun, mysterious dark...

Damage control: brain injuries fight off PTSD in vets.(This Week)(post-traumatic stress disorder, veterans )
January 5, 2008... Brain damage suffered while fighting in a war can undermine core aspects of a soldier's personality and behavior. In two particular neural regions, however, such wounds actually protect combat veterans against developing the severe stress...

Whales started small.(This Week)(Brief article)
January 5, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The ancestors of whales, some of which are the largest creatures ever to evolve, were probably mammals no larger than a fox. New fossils of Indohyus, a genus previously known only from some teeth and a jawbone...

Reading the repeats: cells transcribe telomere DNA.(This Week)
January 5, 2008... TFAGGG, TFAGGG, TTAGGG, TTAGGG. That's the piece of the genetic code repeated thousands of times in telomeres, the protective caps on the ends of chromosomes. Now, two groups of scientists have independently discovered that human cells...

Addiction alleviator? Hallucinogen's popularity grows.(This Week)(ibogaine )
January 5, 2008... The unsanctioned use of an obscure drug to treat addiction has exploded recently, a new report finds. A subculture of advocates who say the hallucinogen ibogaine alleviates addiction to opiates has welled up from New York City and spread...

A different side of estrogen: second receptor complicates efforts to understand hormone.
January 5, 2008... The mice in Jan-Ake Gustafsson's lab are obese, their bones are brittle, and their spleens are unusually big. The female mice produce fewer and smaller litters than normal mice. They also are more likely to develop high blood pressure and a...

Not so spineless: behaviors we expect from animals--but quirks and personalities? Studies of spiders and insects say maybe.
January 5, 2008... Chad Johnson wants to know what's up with all the black widow spiders. So do plenty of other people who've moved to Phoenix, or managed to be born there, in such numbers that it has become the fifth-most-populous city in the United States....

Smog's heavy impacts.(ENVIRONMENT)(Brief article)
January 5, 2008... Breathing smoggy air diminishes the ability to breathe deeply in overweight people more than it does in lean folks. The new finding mirrors an effect recently seen in rodents. About a decade ago, Milan J. Hazucha of the University of North...

Tiptoe acrobats get it just right.(PHYSICS)(Water striders )(Brief article)
January 5, 2008... If walking on water takes grace, jumping on it requires exquisite care. Water striders spend most of their lives on a water surface, typically that of a pond. Microscopic hairs, coated with a waxy substance, make the striders' long legs...

Meetings.(Calendar)
January 5, 2008... American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine Las Vegas, Nev. Dec. 12-15, 2007 American Geophysical Union San Francisco, Calif. Dec. 10-14, 2007

Milking performance from damaged brains.(NUEROSCIENCE)(glycerophosphocholine improves mental function)(Brief article)
January 5, 2008... Given intravenously, a molecule found in breast milk can improve mental function in people with dementia and in victims of stroke and traumatic brain injury. Researchers at the University of Palermo in Italy tested the molecule, called...

Keeping metabolic syndrome at bay.(NUTRITION)(Brief article)
January 5, 2008... Chromium supplements might stave off the life-shortening effects of metabolic syndrome, a condition that can lead to diabetes and heart disease. People with metabolic syndrome have high blood sugar levels and high blood pressure, among...

Struck from above.(PALEONTOLOGY)(Brief article)
January 5, 2008... Evidence of an extraterrestrial object striking Earth at the height of the last ice age comes not from a crater in the ground, but from the micrometeorites embedded in the tusks of creatures grazing the Alaskan tundra when the event occurred....

An earlier thaw can trim winter logging.(SCIENCE & SOCIETY)(Brief article)
January 5, 2008... Global warming, rather than increasing opportunities for development in cold northern regions, can detrimentally affect a region's economy. In New Hampshire, for example, the trend toward earlier spring thaws has significantly lowered logging...

No-drive experiment curbs air pollution in Beijing.(ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCE)(Brief article)
January 5, 2008... Traffic-control measures can significantly reduce urban air pollution, a field study done in Beijing this summer indicates. Beijing, a city of 15 million people and 3 million cars, has notoriously bad air, and it's getting worse, says Tong...

In 2007, Greenland set a melting record.(CLIMATE CHANGE)
January 5, 2008... The duration and extent of ice melt across high-altitude portions of the Greenland ice sheet last year were the highest they've been in recent decades, satellite observations indicate. By measuring microwave radiation reflected from a...

Snake Oil Science: The Truth About Complementary and Alternative Medicine.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
January 5, 2008... SNAKE OIL SCIENCE: The Truth About Complementary and Alternative Medicine R. BARKER BAUSELL A former government myth buster--he has tested claims of complementary and alternative medicine for the National Institutes of Health--Bausell...

Magical Moments of Change: How Psychotherapy Turns Kids Around.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
January 5, 2008... MAGICAL MOMENTS OF CHANGE: HOW Psychotherapy Turns Kids Around LENORE TERR Child psychiatrist Terr, a foremost expert in childhood trauma, draws on her own experience and that of 33 of America's top child and adolescent psychiatrists...

A Life Decoded: My Genome: My Life.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
January 5, 2008... A LIFE DECODED: My Genome: My Life J. CRAIG VENTER In this "bad boy gone good" autobiography, J. Craig Venter tells of how he went from being a self-proclaimed adrenaline junkie who skipped school to catch waves to the man who raced...

What Is Emotion? History. Measures, and Meanings.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
January 5, 2008... WHAT IS EMOTION? History. Measures, and Meanings JEROME KAGAN As neurobiologists set out to identify regions of the brain corresponding to fear, anxiety, happiness, and indecision, psychologists may wonder whether those clear...

Cosmological Enigmas: Pulsars, Quasars, and Other Deep-Space Questions.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
January 5, 2008... COSMOLOGICAL ENIGMAS: Pulsars, Quasars, and Other Deep-Space Questions MARK KIDGER Sometimes the most basic questions expose big gaps in scientific knowledge. Questions as basic as how did the universe start? How will it end? Humans...

Missing link.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
January 5, 2008... "Antibiotics in infancy tied to asthma" (SN: 7/7/07, p. 14) reported a correlation but no confident explanation for the relationship between receiving antibiotics and later developing asthma. "Ulcer bug may prevent asthma" (SN: 10/27/07, p....

Do the math.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
January 5, 2008... "Strategies to improve teaching" (SN: 12/8/07, p. 366) says that American students' science and math skills have been falling relative to those of their peers in other countries. How true. Recent tests put the United States in 14th place in an...

The scenic route.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
January 5, 2008... We in Maine were surprised to learn that the beautiful Penobscot Narrows Bridge runs between Bangor and Brewer ("Bad Vibrations," SN: 11/24/07,p. 331). In fact, it connects Prospect, in Waldo County, with Verona, in Hancock County. The three...

Dental record.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
January 5, 2008... The DNA analysis indicating that some south Siberian bones from the Pleistocene age are from Neandertals ("Ancient DNA moves Neandertals eastward," SN: 10/13/07, p. 238) matches very well with my interpretation of teeth from those same caves. I...

Risky DNA: autism studies yield fresh genetic leads.(This Week)(deoxyribonucleic acid)
January 12, 2008... As scientists inch closer to unraveling autism's causes, this perplexing developmental condition increasingly shows its diverse roots. Consider two new genetic investigations. One finds that spontaneous alterations to a tiny stretch of...

Hued afterglow: fingerprinting diamonds via phosphorescence.(This Week)
January 12, 2008... The eerie phosphorescence displayed by a rare form of blue diamond can be used as an easy, cheap, and nondestructive way to identify individual gemstones and to distinguish natural blue diamonds from synthetic ones, analyses suggest. ...

Mind control: hypnosis offers amnesia clues.(This Week)
January 12, 2008... Hypnosis can make some people forget and, when given a special cue, quickly remember recently viewed scenes. A new study using the technique may shed light on the process of memory retrieval and the potential for one part of the brain to block...

Heavy find: weighty neutron stars may rule out exotic core.(This Week)
January 12, 2008... Neutron stars may be weird, but they're not so strange, a new study reveals. Crushed by gravity, matter at the cores of neutron stars--the collapsed remains of heavyweight stars--is subject to a combination of enormously high pressure and...

Seeing again: blind fish parents have fry that see.(This Week)(cave tetra)
January 12, 2008... Keep them in the dark for a million years. Then cross two strains of cave-dwelling fish, now totally blind. It turns out some of their kids will be able to see. Fish and other creatures lose their sight after generations living in caves....

Positive signal: lone protons carry messages between cells.(This Week)
January 12, 2008... Roundworms need protons to poop. New research shows that protons released by roundworms' intestines trigger surrounding muscles to contract, causing the worm to defecate. The discovery marks the first time that scientists have found...

Bathtub optics: bending light also shifts it sideways.(This Week)
January 12, 2008... The familiar optical illusion that makes a pencil look broken when half-dipped in water just took a new twist. A new experiment shows that when light bends at an interface (such as between water and air), the light's photons take a sideways...

La Brea Del Sur: the fossil-rich tar pits of Venezuela may rival those of Southern California.
January 12, 2008... Los Angeles' Rancho La Brea is one of the world's most famous fossil-bearing sites. The tar pits there have yielded more than 1 million fossils representing 50 mammal species, 125 types of birds, and dozens of reptiles, insects, and other...

Life from scratch: learning to make synthetic cells.
January 12, 2008... Maggots don't arise spontaneously out of dead, rotting meat. Aphids never materialize within drops of morning dew. Aristotle and others who believed in the spontaneous generation of life were dead wrong. The only time life arose from...

Smoking ups risk for type 2 diabetes.(EPIDEMIOLOGY)(Brief article)
January 12, 2008... It's well known that smoking causes heart disease and several types of cancer. Researchers now say that the habit also boosts the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, by as much as 61 percent. That's for people who smoke at least a pack a...

Purring birds teach their chicks to beg.(ZOOLOGY)(Brief article)
January 12, 2008... African birds called pied babblers turn out to have their own version of goofy baby-feeding noises--think "Mmm nummy nummy aaaapricots." What's more, the birds actually teach their chicks that the sounds mean food, says Nichola Raihani of the...

The warm jungles of ancient France.(PALEOBIOLOGY)(Brief article)
January 12, 2008... Chemical analyses of amber excavated near Paris suggest that France was covered with a dense tropical forest about 55 million years ago. Amber is a form of fossilized tree sap. Paleontologists discovered copious deposits of the material in...

Foster care benefits abandoned kids.(BEHAVIOR)(Report)
January 12, 2008... A study in Romania finds that children abandoned at birth and placed in state-run institutions display marked advances on thinking and reasoning tests by age 4 1/2, but only if moved into foster care. In contrast, abandoned kids who stay only...

Down syndrome's anti-tumor effect.(GENETICS)(Brief article)
January 12, 2008... People with Down syndrome face a heightened risk of developing leukemia (SN: 12/22/07, p. 402), but some studies hint that people with the condition might be protected against solid-tumor cancers. A study in mice now shows that the...

Energy forest.(NANOTECHNOLOGY)(Brief article)
January 12, 2008... Thickets of microscopic silicon wires can dramatically boost the storage capacity of batteries, at least in the lab. Lithium-ion batteries power most modern portable gadgets. During use, lithium ions detach from carbon sheets in an anode...

Censoring Science: Inside the Political Attack on Dr. James Hansen and the Truth of Global Warming.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
January 12, 2008... CENSORING SCIENCE: Inside the Political Attack on Dr. James Hansen and the Truth of Global Warming MARK BOWEN Reports of U.S. presidential administrations' successful attempts to discredit and censor scientific evidence about global...

A Stubbornly Persistent Illusion: The Essential Scientific Works of Albert Einstein.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
January 12, 2008... A STUBBORNLY PERSISTENT ILLUSION: The Essential Scientific works of Albert Einstein STEPHEN HAWKING, ED. In exploring the vast and complicated terrain of Albert Einstein's writings, it is surely wise to bring along a guide. And none...

Mirage: Napoleon's Scientists and the Unveiling of Egypt.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
January 12, 2008... MIRAGE: Napoleon's Scientists and the Unveiling of Egypt NINA BURLEIGH When Napoleon invaded Egypt in 1798, he brought along some 150 civilian specialists, including astronomers, botanists, chemists, engineers, mathematicians, and even...

Dinosaurs: The Most Complete, Up-to-Date Encyclopedia for Dinosaur Lovers of All Ages.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
January 12, 2008... DINOSAURS: The Most Complete, Up-to-Date Encyclopedia for Dinosaur Lovers of All Ages THOMAS R. HOLTZ JR. Dinosaurs ruled the Earth for about 170 million years, and paleontologists have discovered and named more than 800 of them. This...

Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
January 12, 2008... BANANA: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World DAN KOEPPEL Did Eve tempt Adam by proffering not an apple but a banana? Why is banana republic much more than a colorful synonym for certain Central American nations? Koeppel...

Shades of meaning.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
January 12, 2008... In "Going Coastal: Sea cave yields ancient signs of modern behavior" (SN: 10/20/07, p. 243), researcher Curtis Marean refers to Stone Age people using a reddish pigment for "body coloring or other symbolic acts." What reason is there for...

Hedge fund.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
January 12, 2008... "Eastern farms have native bee insurance" (SN: 11/24/07, p. 333) says that patches of uncultivated land provide a haven for native bees that can help with pollination. Flowering hedgerows, as used in England instead of fences, would also ensure...

Word of pain.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
January 12, 2008... "'Knuckle fever' reaches Italy" (SN: 10/27/07, p. 270) says that chikungunya means "stooped over in pain" in an African dialect. But which one? Africa has a thousand languages, many of which have more than one dialect. POL SHWINGK,...

Postfix for a prefix.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
January 12, 2008... As a biochemist and a type I diabetic of 24 years, I enjoyed your article on beta cell research ("The Long Road to Beta Cells," SN: 12/15/07, p. 378). However it contained one serious error: After the majority of insulin-secreting beta cells...

Getting the red out: drug improves kids' psoriasis symptoms.(This Week)
January 19, 2008... A rheumatoid arthritis drug can clear up psoriasis in most children, a new study finds. The report might be enough to cinch regulatory approval for the drug, etanercept, as the first systemic medication for psoriasis in youngsters. ...

Phoenix heart: replacing a heart's cells could ease transplants.(This Week)
January 19, 2008... In a step toward growing complex organs for transplants, researchers have stripped all the cells from dead rat hearts and injected the gelatinous empty structures with living heart cells from newborn rats. Eight days later, the repopulated...

Dusty fireball: can lab-made blob explain ball lightning?(This Week)
January 19, 2008... By trapping and X-raying a mysterious kind of artificial fireball, researchers have demonstrated a technique that may help answer whether chemical reactions power the ball lightning occasionally seen in nature. The fireballs first showed up...

A thirst for meat: changes in diet, rising population may strain China's water supply.(This Week)
January 19, 2008... China's rapid industrialization and increasing population, along with a growing dietary preference among its citizens for meat, are straining the country's water resources to the point where food imports will probably be needed to meet demand...

Second time around: some old stars may make new planets.(This Week)
January 19, 2008... How do you transform an old coot into a virile young whippersnapper? For a puffy middle-aged star, the cosmic version of taking Viagra seems to be ingesting a nearby companion--then burping up the stellar meal. That appears to be the best...

When mice fly: bat DNA leads to longer limbs in mouse embryos.(This Week)(deoxyribonucleic acid)
January 19, 2008... Give a mouse embryo a stretch of bat DNA, and its limbs grow a little longer, a new genetic study shows. The change, though small, may illustrate one evolutionary step on the path to wings. Charles Darwin suggested that a series of such...

Infectious voyagers: DNA suggests Columbus took syphilis to Europe.(This Week)
January 19, 2008... Goodbye Columbus, hello syphilis. When Renaissance-era folk bade farewell to Christopher Columbus and his crew, little did they know that the New World explorers would return with syphilis infections that eventually triggered devastating...

X-raying a galactic jet set.(This Week)(Brief article)
January 19, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Jets of energetic particles shoot out from a supermassive black hole in the deepest X-ray image ever taken of the galaxy Centaurus A, 11 million light-years from Earth. In this 199-hour portrait, recorded with NASA's...

Blind bet: despite uncertain odds, many horse owners gamble on stem cell therapy.
January 19, 2008... No animal has shaped the course of civilization more than the horse. Horses have pulled plows, herded cattle, and brought riders into battlefields and to the edges of continents. Today, horses are carrying their human companions to another...

Judging science: courts may be too skeptical of research done with juries in mind.(litigation science)
January 19, 2008... From Perry Mason to Law & Order, legal dramas have proved among the most predictably popular series on American television. In such shows, a defendant's guilt or innocence typically comes to light only after expert witnesses testify before a...

Transport emissions sizable, and rising.(SCIENCE & SOCIETY)(Brief article)
January 19, 2008... Almost one-sixth of the carbon dioxide produced by human activity since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution has resulted from the transport of goods and people--a fraction that is increasing by the year, scientists say. Worldwide,...

Night lights may foster cancer.(CANCER)(Brief article)
January 19, 2008... Although our bodies evolved to work while the sun shines and to rest at night, people in today's 24/7 society sleep, work, and play with little regard for solar cycles. This flaunting dominion over darkness may come at a cost, however--a...

Retro RAM.(NANOTECHNOLOGY)(Brief article)
January 19, 2008... In a throwback to the bulky electromechanical computers of the 1940s, future memory chips might harbor moving parts, gently nudging each other. This time, data would be stored by billions of carbon nanotubes acting as mechanical switches. ...

Butterfly's clock linked to compass.(ZOOLOGY)(monarch butterfly)(Brief article)
January 19, 2008... The most detailed look yet at the monarch butterfly's built-in clock suggests it's an ancient model. The molecular mechanism that keeps the day-night rhythm in the butterfly's brain shares features with the fruit fly and mouse clocks, says...

Sleep disruption and glucose processing.(BIOMEDICINE)(Brief article)
January 19, 2008... Shallow sleep can impair a person's glucose metabolism, despite the presence of adequate insulin, researchers report. The finding might explain previous studies that linked poor sleep patterns with type 2, or adult-onset, diabetes, since the...

Switchgrass may yield biofuel bounty.(ENERGY)(Brief article)
January 19, 2008... Reap more than you sow. That's the challenge faced by farmers who grow crops for biofuels. Even as biofuel production booms, some scientists have questioned whether the fertilizer- and tractor-intensive farming of crops used to make...

HIV variant might help vaccine search.(BIOMEDICINE)(human immunodeficiency virus)(Brief article)
January 19, 2008... The quest for an AIDS vaccine has been hampered by the human immunodeficiency virus' (HIV) ability to present a moving target, befuddling the immune system. Antibodies made against the proteins that envelope the virus lose their effect when the...

Bird's-eye view of Antarctic ice loss.(EARTH SCIENCE)(Brief article)
January 19, 2008... Satellite images of Antarctica between 1992 and 2006 indicate that the continent was losing ice much faster at the end of that period than it was a decade before. Snow that falls on Antarctica makes its way to the sea as ice via glaciers,...

The Five-Second Rule and Other Myths About Germs: What Everyone Should Know About Bacteria, Viruses, Mold and Mildew.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
January 19, 2008... THE FIVE-SECOND RULE AND OTHER MYTHS ABOUT GERMS: What Everyone Should Know About Bacteria, Viruses, Mold and Mildew ANNE E. MACZULAK Is it the 5-second rule, the 3-second rule, or the 30-second rule that dictates whether or not to...

The Normal Personality: A New Way of Thinking About People.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
January 19, 2008... THE NORMAL PERSONALITY: A New Way of Thinking About People STEVEN REISS Freud is dead, but psychoanalysis is not. His practice of probing patients for unconscious factors has been criticized for making sexual or aggressive desires...

A Force of Nature: The Frontier Genius of Ernest Rutherford.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
January 19, 2008... A FORCE OF NATURE: The Frontier Genius of Ernest Rutherford RICHARD REEVES A century ago, Ernest Rutherford was one of England's most famous scientists. In 1908, he received the Nobel Prize in chemistry for his investigations of...

Benjamin Franklin's Numbers: An Unsung Mathematical Odyssey.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
January 19, 2008... BENJAMIN FRANKLIN'S NUMBERS: An Unsung Mathematical Odyssey PAUL C. PASLES If Ben Franklin were alive today, he might be a Silicon Valley guru, or even a presidential candidate, but he would certainly be a Sudoku expert. Franklin...

Living Systems: Innovative Materials and Technologies for Landscape Architecture.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
January 19, 2008... LIVING SYSTEMS: Innovative Materials and Technologies for Landscape Architecture LIAT MARGOLIS AND ALEXANDER ROBINSON, EDS. The growing demand for ecoconscious technology calls for new concepts and materials drawn from the work of...

Evening the score.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
January 19, 2008... When Ai, mother of the chimp Amuyu, whose mental feats you reported in "Chimp Champ: Ape aces memory test, outscores people" (SN: 12/8/07, p. 355), appeared in a television documentary a few years ago, I reproduced for myself the...

Polar musings.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
January 19, 2008... In "North by Northwest" (SN: 12/22 & 29/07, p. 392), I believe that the term declination was used in error. On any nautical navigation chart the difference between magnetic and true north is called "variation." Declination has always been the...

Mercury, as never seen before: MESSENGER visits innermost planet.(This Week)
January 26, 2008... Mercury's image problem is fading. On Jan. 14, NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft flew within 200 kilometers of the solar system's smallest--and off-ignored--planet. The craft viewed one crater-pocked hemisphere, half of which had never before been...

Big foot: eco-footprints of rich dwarf poor nations' debt.(This Week)
January 26, 2008... The first accounting of who's stomping on whom finds rich nations leaving supersized boot prints of ecological damage on poor countries, adding up to more than those nations' debt to the wealthier countries. Rich nations' doings during the...

Do-it-yourself DNA: scientists assemble first synthetic genome.(This Week)
January 26, 2008... Starting from custom-made segments of DNA, scientists have succeeded in putting together an entire microbial genome in the lab. The researchers plan to transplant this genome into a microbe in the hope that the cell will "boot up" and use the...

Scanner darkly: tiny venetian blinds enhance radiography.(This Week)
January 26, 2008... Ordinary X-ray machines have their limits in screening luggage. For one thing, they can't always tell the difference between plastic explosives and cheese. A new imaging technique, based on how materials scatter rather than absorb X rays, could...

Sickness and schizophrenia: psychotic ills tied to previous infections.(This Week)
January 26, 2008... Researchers have long suspected that certain childhood infections contribute to the development of schizophrenia by young adulthood, although scarce evidence supports that hunch. Two new studies published in the January American Journal of...

Bariatric reversal: stomach surgery curbs some patients' diabetes.(This Week)
January 26, 2008... In obese people with diabetes, stomach surgery to control hunger may do more than induce weight loss. A study now finds it can send their diabetes into remission. Australian researchers enlisted 60 obese people diagnosed in the previous 2...