Science News articles from July 2006

Science News archives from July 2006

Gay males' sibling link: men's homosexuality tied to having older brothers.(This Week)
July 1, 2006... Birth order may steer some men toward homosexuality in a process that perhaps begins before birth. A new study finds that homosexuality grows more likely with the greater number of biological older brothers--those sharing both father and...

Sight for 'saur eyes: T. rex vision was among nature's best.(This Week)
July 1, 2006... In the 1993 movie Jurassic Park, one human character tells another that a Tyrannosaurus rex can't see them if they don't move, even though the beast is right in front of them. Now, a scientist reports that T. rex had some of the best vision in...

Hot prospect: simple burner keeps pollution counts down.(This Week)
July 1, 2006... A new type of combustion chamber reduces pollution with less complexity and a safer, more reliable design than other low-emission burners, the device's developers say. The novel chamber, or combustor, could replace conventional chambers in...

Getting back at celiac: enzyme treatment might stem wheat intolerance.(This Week)
July 1, 2006... A combination of two enzymes could eventually treat celiac disease, an inherited digestive disorder that affects about 1 percent of people worldwide. People with this condition, also known as celiac sprue, can't tolerate gluten, a protein...

Measuring stick: spinal tap test tracks Alzheimer's compound.(This Week)
July 1, 2006... Scientists point to high concentrations of amyloid-beta in the brain as the chief culprit in Alzheimer's disease. But they don't know whether the increased amounts of this peptide arise from its overproduction or from a failure of the body to...

Planet-making disk has a banana split.(This Week)(Brief article)
July 1, 2006... Two bright-yellow, banana-shaped arcs of gas and dust face each other within a newly discovered disk surrounding a young star called HD 142527. The disk, with a radius about six times the average distance between Neptune and the sun, may...

Sweet synthesis: fructose product could replace chemicals from oil.(This Week)
July 1, 2006... The production of many chemicals starts with petroleum, but as worldwide oil supplies wane, scientists are looking for renewable building blocks. A Wisconsin team describes the efficient use of fructose toward making one starting material. The...

Lavender revolution: plant essences linked to enlarged breasts in boys.(This Week)
July 1, 2006... Two ingredients common in many hair- and skin-care products have been linked to abnormal development of breasts in boys. Lavender oil and tea tree oil con tain compounds that act like female sex hormones and interfere with male hormones,...

Pumping alloy: a new way to power artificial muscles may lead to lifelike machines.
July 1, 2006... In a Texas laboratory, a toy mechanical arm just the length of an index finger perches, folded up, at the edge of an empty glass bowl. A young man in a lab coat squirts a volatile fluid, methanol, into the bowl. Moments later, the arm jerks and...

A vexing enigma: new insights confront chronic fatigue syndrome.(Disease/Disorder overview)
July 1, 2006... Laurel Wright was 52 years old when her well-being plummeted. That May, she began to feel inexplicably tired, day after day. "By September," she says, "I crashed and burned." She developed debilitating exhaustion, severe insomnia, muscle aches,...

Galactic de Gustibus: Milky Way's snacks shed light on dark matter and galaxy growth.
July 1, 2006... Thirteen billion years after its birth, the Milky Way is still packing on the stars. Astronomers have discovered two dwarf galaxies that are being devoured by the Milky Way. They've also found two vast, streams of stars that were most likely...

Mexican find reveals ancient dental work.(ANTHROPOLOGY)(Brief article)
July 1, 2006... Researchers excavating an ancient burial site in west-central Mexico have unearthed a man's skeleton containing the earliest American example of intentionally modified teeth. The discovery, announced June 14 by Tricia Gabany-Guerrero of the...

Cells in bloodstream don't refill ovaries.(BIOLOGY)(Brief article)
July 1, 2006... Blood doesn't carry cells that replenish a female animal's supply of eggs, a new study suggests. The finding contradicts a surprising report last year suggesting that scenario. Scientists had long held that females are born with a supply of...

Pregnancy risk from blood pressure drugs?(BIOMEDICINE)(Brief article)
July 1, 2006... Babies exposed in the first trimester of their mother's pregnancy to blood pressure drugs called ACE inhibitors are at an increased risk of birth defects, according to a new study. The drugs already carry a warning against their use dining the...

With permission to nap, doctors stay more alert.(SCIENCE AND SOCIETY)(Brief article)
July 1, 2006... While on call, doctors-in-training often spend 30 hours at a stretch at a hospital. Although they may catch catnaps when they're not needed at a bedside, these interns develop fatigue that can pose risks to them and to their patients. A...

Humanlike touch from chemical film.(TECHNOLOGY)(Brief article)
July 1, 2006... A newly unveiled tactile sensor rivals the sensitivity of human skin. When pressed against a penny, for instance, the film can distinguish the wrinkles in Abraham Lincoln's clothing. The transparent film--broader than a fingertip but less...

Mammalian ear cells can regenerate.(BIOLOGY)(Brief article)
July 1, 2006... The cells responsible for hearing in mammals are capable of regeneration, a study indicates. The surprising finding could lead to new treatments for hearing loss, say researchers. In birds and other vertebrates, inner-ear sensory, cells...

Seeing the light.(MATERIALS SCIENCE)(Brief article)
July 1, 2006... Researchers have developed a "smart petri dish" that signals cell death with intense light. The system could find use in screening drags for toxic effects. Rather than growing cells in a plastic dish, Michael J. Sailor of the University of...

Blinding spies' digital eyes.(TECHNOLOGY)(Brief article)
July 1, 2006... A businessman at a trade show stealthily raises his camera-equipped cell phone to snap a picture of his competitor's latest gizmo. But before he captures the image, an electronic foe gets the drop on him and blasts his camera with a blinding...

The Infinite Cosmos: Questions from the Frontiers of Cosmology.(Brief article)(Book review)
July 1, 2006... JOSEPH SILK Cosmology captures the imagination because people are curious about their own and the universe's origins. Silk, a professor of astronomy at the University of Oxford, takes readers on a tour of the field and summarizes the...

The Glory of Gardens: 2,000 Years of Writings on Garden Design.(Brief article)(Book review)
July 1, 2006... SCOTT J. TILDEN, ED. The beauty of gardens has inspired many people not only to create their own patches of nature but also to write about the process and their emotions while doing so. In this unusual volume, Tilden collects writings from...

The Life Cycles of Butterflies: From Egg to Maturity, a Visual Guide to 23 Common Garden Butterflies.(Brief article)(Book review)
July 1, 2006... JUDY BURRIS AND WAYNE RICHARDS With this guide to butterflies, Burris and Richards encourage other people to have as much enthusiasm as they do for these creatures. Butterflies are remarkable for many reasons, starting with their...

The Shorebird Guide.(Brief article)(Book review)
July 1, 2006... MICHAEL O'BRIEN, RICHARD CROSSLEY, AND KEVIN KARLSON Worldwide, there are 217 species of shorebirds, and North America hosts approximately 50 of them. Despite shorebirds' small representation among the world's more than 8,000 bird species,...

Ten Worlds: Everything that Orbits the Sun.(Brief article)(Book review)
July 1, 2006... KEN CROSWELL In 2005, for the first time in 75 years, astronomers discovered a new planet, suddenly making legions of classroom solar system models obsolete. Croswell, author of several award-winning astronomy titles, introduces young...

Looking into the future.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
July 1, 2006... Your article states that farsightedness will be treated with these new electric lenses (Switch-a-Vision: Electric spectacles could aid aging eyes;' SN: 4/22/06, p. 243). With some tweaking, could nearsightedness and astigmatism be treated as...

Gut feeling?(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
July 1, 2006... The article "Hot-pepper ingredient slows cancer in mice" (SN: 4/22/06, p. 254) raises a couple of questions for me. Recently, I drank some clam-tomato juice that contained jalapeno puree. It seemed to alleviate some of my internal ailments. So,...

Blundering hordes.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
July 1, 2006... Something mystified me in your story "Buried Treasures: Constructing--and deconstructing--cave formations" (SN: 4/29/06, p. 266). Apparently, preservation experts are concerned that microorganisms could wipe out Stone Age cave paintings, as if...

Close your books: cuts, shutdowns loom for EPA libraries.(Environmental Protection Agency)
July 15, 2006... Some regional libraries maintained by the Environmental Protection Agency will permanently shut their doors because of a proposed cut to their funding, agency librarians and former librarians say. Several libraries have already cut staff and...

Explosive aftermath: sluggish neutron star puzzles astronomers.
July 15, 2006... Even if astronomers don't quite know how stars blow up, they thought that they at least understood what those stellar explosions leave behind. But an X-ray-emitting object at the heart of a young supernova remnant called RCW 103 doesn't fit the...

Live prey for dummies: meerkats coach pups on hunting.(Alex Thornton of the University of Cambridge)
July 15, 2006... Meerkats are natural teachers--one of the few animals other than people so far shown to have the knack, say researchers. Older hunters gradually introduce pups to the art of eating dinner before it runs away, reports Alex Thornton of the...

Farm-fuel feedback: soybeans have advantages over corn.(biofuels)
July 15, 2006... A new analysis of two commercial biofuels finds that while both provide more energy than they consume, soybean biodiesel gives more bang for the buck than ethanol made from corn does. Corn-grain ethanol and soybean biodiesel are the two...

Little ancestor, big debate: tiny islanders' identity sparks dispute.
July 15, 2006... New measurements bolster the 2-year-old claim that fossils of a half-size human ancestor found on the Indonesian island of Flores represent a new species, Homo floresiensis. Comparisons of a partial Flores skeleton with bones of other human...

Keep on going: busy seniors live longer, more proof that it pays to stay active.
July 15, 2006... Elderly people who bustle around the house, spend much time on their feet, climb stairs, and hold down jobs might be buying themselves precious years of life. In a new study, researchers used a precise measure of calorie burning to assess...

Radiation redux: forest fires remobilize fallout from bomb tests.(radioactive cesium being distributed)
July 15, 2006... A sensitive instrument installed in the Canadian Arctic to monitor fallout from modern nuclear tests has detected small amounts of radioactive cesium produced by bomb tests decades ago. The material, which during the Cold War was spread across...

Smells like the real thing: sensing systems that mimic noses and taste buds.
July 15, 2006... Whether bulbous, Roman, or pug, the nose gets all the credit. But the actual star of smell is an unassuming patch of tissue, several centimeters square, tucked up inside each nasal cavity. After a whiff of a peach or a lilac, this tissue...

Out of sight: physicists get serious about invisibility shields.
July 15, 2006... First, a disclaimer: Invisibility cloaks like Harry Potter are nowhere near becoming reality. Nor has anyone unearthed proof that the infamous Philadelphia experiment--in which U.S. Navy scientists in 1943 supposedly made a destroyer and its...

Warning: slow down for whales.(National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration )(Brief article)
July 15, 2006... To protect right whales in the northwest Atlantic--one of the most depleted cetacean populations worldwide--the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has proposed seasonal speed limits for large, ocean-going vessels. Currently,...

Mad cow disease might linger longer.
July 15, 2006... A rare but deadly human illness spread by cannibalism has an incubation period in some individuals of about 4 decades, researchers in New Guinea have discovered. The finding implies that a related human illness caused by eating beef from cattle...

Asbestos fibers: barking up a tree.(Brief article)
July 15, 2006... In Libby, Mont., mining of asbestos-contaminated vermiculite--a natural insulating material--sickened or killed many workers and townspeople in recent decades. Now, a study finds that even 16 years after the vermiculite mine closed, area trees...

Statins might lower risk of cataracts.(Brief article)
July 15, 2006... Cholesterol-lowering drugs called statins might be slowing the formation of certain kinds of cataracts in people taking the drugs. Ophthalmologist Barbara E. Klein of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her colleagues analyzed data from...

Growth hormone's risks outweigh its benefits.(Brief article)
July 15, 2006... Human growth hormone has substantial risks and no functional benefits for healthy, elderly people, according to a comprehensive review. Injections of the substance are an approved therapy in children and adults who have growth-hormone...

Did small hominids have a genetic defect?(Laron syndrome)(Brief article)
July 15, 2006... Miniature humans whose prehistoric remains were recently unearthed on an Indonesian island may have had a genetic disease known as Laron syndrome. The 2004 discovery of Homo floresiensis (SN: 10/30/04, p. 275) suggested that this...

Thyroid-hormone mimic lowers LDL.(low-density lipoproteins)(Brief article)
July 15, 2006... A compound in a new class of potential anti-cholesterol drugs has passed an early test in people, researchers report. The drug would mimic thyroid hormone, which reduces blood concentrations of low-density lipoproteins (LDL), or bad...

In utero factors shape responses to stress, sugar.
July 15, 2006... Abnormal conditions during pregnancy can lead in unexpected ways to physiological problems in children once they reach adulthood, two new studies suggest. In the 1960s, British obstetricians encouraged pregnant women to eat a meat-heavy,...

Meetings.(Brief article)(Calendar)
July 15, 2006... The Endocrine Society Boston, Mass. June 24-27

Postmortem: How Medical Examiners Explain Suspicious Deaths.(Brief article)(Book review)
July 15, 2006... POSTMORTEM: How Medical Examiners Explain Suspicious Deaths STEFAN TIMMERMANS The science of death has been popularized by several forensics-oriented television shows and murder-mystery book series. In this detailed book, Timmermans...

How Invention Begins: Echoes of Old Voices in the Rise of New Machines.(Brief article)(Book review)
July 15, 2006... HOW INVENTION BEGINS: Echoes of Old Voices in the Rise of New Machines JOHN H. LIENHARD Who invented the airplane? The Wright brothers, correct? What about the doughnut or the steam engine? Though an individual or small group of...

After Dolly: The Uses and Misuses of Human Cloning .(Brief article)(Book review)
July 15, 2006... AFTER DOLLY: The Uses and Misuses of Human Cloning IAN WILMUT AND ROGER HIGHFIELD In 1996, a sheep named Dolly forever changed the way people think about life and reproduction and made Ian Wilmut an international superstar. The cloning of...

Fearless Symmetry: Exposing the Hidden Patterns of Numbers.(Brief article)(Book review)
July 15, 2006... FEARLESS SYMMETRY: Exposing the Hidden Patterns of Numbers AVNER ASH AND ROBERT GROSS Mathematics is an ever-evolving discipline, but Ash and Gross assert that many non-mathematicians are under the impression that everything that can be...

Uncommon Sense: Understanding Nature's Truths Across Time and Culture.(Brief article)(Book review)
July 15, 2006... UNCOMMON SENSE: Understanding Nature's Truths across Time and Culture ANTHONY AVENI In Edvard Munch's iconic painting The Scream, we see a horrified figure against a blood-red sky. While this feature could have been dismissed as stylistic...

People want to know.(Letter to the editor)
July 15, 2006... "Sharing the Health: Cells from unusual mice make others cancerfree" (SN: 5/13/06, p. 292) reported that years ago it was discovered that certain male mice eradicate cancer cells and that white blood cells from these mice make normal mice...

Relatively easy to take.(Letter to the editor)
July 15, 2006... Unlike some, I find no problem with the idea of hybrids between ancestors of chimpanzees and humans ("Hybrid-Driven Evolution: Genomes show complexity of human-chimp split," SN: 5/20/06, p. 308). We have to assume that any speciation event will...

Terrific timekeeper: optical atomic clock beats world standard.
July 22, 2006... Physicists in Colorado say that they've refined an innovative atomic clock to be more precise than the breed of clocks that's been the best for 50 years. The advance indicates that the reign of atomic clocks tuned to the element cesium is...

Bee concerned: big study: selective pollinators are declining.
July 22, 2006... A million records from insect-spotting hobbyists in Europe contain the broadest evidence so far of a decline among some of the region's pollinators and the wild plants that need them, says an international research team. The new study...

Gender divide: gene expression differs in males and females.
July 22, 2006... There are far more biological differences between males and females than meet the naked eye. A new study suggests that the two sexes vary in the amounts of proteins produced by thousands of genes--information that could explain why some...

Deadly disorder: imagined-ugliness illness yields high suicide rate.
July 22, 2006... The suicide rate among people with a psychiatric disorder that causes them to perceive themselves as ugly is higher than that among people with major depression, says a new report. Over the course of a 4-year study, 2 of 185 patients with...

From mind to matter: data analysis challenges psychokinesis.
July 22, 2006... Scientists have long considered claims that people can manipulate the physical world with their minds. Yet numerous experiments conducted over the past 35 years, in which people try to influence the output of computers that generate random...

Sandy clues to ancient climate.(Nebraska)(Brief article)
July 22, 2006... The orientation of these dunes in north-central Nebraska provide a clue that the climate there a millennium ago was much different than it is today. The Nebraska Sand Hills have been frozen in place by vegetation for 800 to 1,000 years, says...

Big headache: auras may add risk to migraines.(sensory irregularities)
July 22, 2006... As if the headaches weren't enough. Women who experience migraines that are preceded by sensory irregularities face a heightened risk of heart attack, stroke, and other cardiovascular problems, a long-term study of middle-aged women shows. ...

Recurrent eruption: explosive stellar saga.
July 22, 2006... Imagine the blast of a nuclear bomb as heavy as Earth and you'll get some idea of the energy unleashed in each of the six thermonuclear explosions that have ripped off the outer layers of a dense, nearby star in the past 108 years. During...

Bringing up baby's DNA: less risky techniques for assessing fetal genes.(deoxyribonucleic acid)
July 22, 2006... At the age of 39, Robin Nolan of Carson City, Nev., found out that she was pregnant with her first child. The timing was perfect for her and her husband's personal and professional lives, but doctors warned Nolan that her age inflated the...

Chaotic Chomp: the mathematics of crystal growth sheds light on a tantalizing game.
July 22, 2006... It's hard to imagine a simpler two-player game than Chomp. Start by laying out a rectangular array of cookies. The players take turns picking a cookie, each time removing the chosen cookie and all cookies above and to the right of it. Each move...

Some deadly monikers.(Nix and Hydra)(Brief article)
July 22, 2006... Pluto and its large moon Charon have some company in the underworld. Two recently discovered small moons orbiting Pluto have now been officially dubbed Nix and Hydra. NIX is the mythological goddess of the night. One of Nix's offspring was...

Stilts for ants make case for pedometer.
July 22, 2006... Gluing pig bristles to ant legs to lengthen their strides or trimming the insects' legs to shorten their steps distorts their judgments of distance, say researchers. The distortions offer the first experimental evidence in any animal of a...

Why people punish.(Brief article)
July 22, 2006... Many people say that they believe in punishing criminals only to deter further offenses, but a study of people's decisions as mock jurors overwhelmingly suggests that they would punish lawbreakers for the purpose of retribution. "What's...

Orchid bends around to insert pollen.(Brief article)
July 22, 2006... Researchers studying an orchid in a parched, windless habitat have discovered a new twist on self-pollination. Other flowers pollinate themselves, but none has been reported to do so as acrobatically as the flowers of Holcoglossum...

Mammoths: Blondes and brunettes?(Brief article)
July 22, 2006... The wool of woolly mammoths may have come in at least two shades, according to new genetic research. Scientists have dug up several of the Pleistocene-era beasts in recent years, and a few well-preserved specimens have yielded remains of...

Ingredient might prevent sexually transmitted disease.(Brief article)
July 22, 2006... A seaweed derivative that's commonly added to baby food, lubricants, and other consumer products as a thickening agent can inhibit the virus that causes cervical cancer and genital warts. About 20 million Americans are infected with the...

Alaskan coral beds get new protection.(National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)
July 22, 2006... Huge tracts of delicate coral gardens and soft-coral forests off the coast of Alaska will be permanently protected from fishing gear that targets groundfish and shellfish by scraping the seafloor. Most of the affected sites have never been...

Global warming heats up nursery of hurricanes.(Brief article)
July 22, 2006... A record number of tropical storms and hurricanes formed in the North Atlantic last year (SN: 12/24 & 31/05, p. 406). One factor driving this unprecedented activity was the unusually warm waters there, and global warming was largely to blame,...

A Mind of Its Own: How Your Brain Distorts and Deceives.(Brief article)(Book review)
July 22, 2006... The human brain has the amazing capacity to simultaneously perform multiple tasks of perception, emotion, and reasoning, making it the most powerful computational tool in existence. Fine, a psychologist, nevertheless examines a side of our...

Ogallala Blue: Water and Life of the High Plains.(Brief article)(Book review)
July 22, 2006... Beneath the sprawling, flat midsection of this country lies an underground aquifer, called the Ogallala that's large enough to fill Lake Erie nine times over. This water is what makes possible the area's crops of corn, cotton, wheat, and...

Big Coal: The Dirty Secret Behind America's Energy Future.(Brief article)(Book review)
July 22, 2006... In support of a homegrown energy source that might lessen this country's reliance on Middle East oil, some politicians have recently touted coal. The Department of Energy estimates that the United States has 270 billion tons of recoverable...

When a Gene Makes You Smell Like a Fish: And Other Tales About the Genes in Your Body.(Brief article)(Book review)
July 22, 2006... Trimethylaminuria, otherwise known as fish odor syndrome, is a devastating condition whose origin, until recently, remained mysterious. Sufferers emit a foul smell that no amount of hygiene can remove. The disease's mystery was solved when...

Many Worlds in One: The Search for Other Universes.(Brief article)(Book review)
July 22, 2006... Cosmologists have amazing stories to tell about the beginning of the cosmos. Most people are somewhat familiar with the Big Bang, the theory that the universe emerged from a great eruption of matter and energy 14 billion years ago. In this...

First, count all the lawyers.(Letter to the editor)
July 22, 2006... The study in "Legal Debate: Assumptions on medical malpractice called into question" (SN: 5/13/06, p. 291) fails to address the more disturbing issue: Most of the insurance money (apparently) goes to lawyers (both sides), and very little to...

Aye for an eye.(Letter to the editor)
July 22, 2006... Regarding the "new humanmade version of an insect's compound eye" ("Rounding out an insect-eye view," SN: 5/20/06, p. 318), it has been obvious for many years that such structures need not be exceptionally small and need not be extremely like...

Breaking crust: sonar finds new kind of deep-sea volcano.(Stephanie P. Ingle at the University of Hawaii )
July 29, 2006... Explorations east of Japan have revealed a previously unknown type of volcano. Volcanoes typically emerge in one of three geological settings, explains Stephanie P. Ingle, a geochemist at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu. Some crop up...

Babbling bats: do pups talk baby talk as human infants do?(This Week)
July 29, 2006... Young sac-winged bats jumble bits of adult-sounding calls into strings, say researchers who've recorded the babies' vocalizations. The pups make these jumbled noises without the usual contexts, and that's babbling, contends Oliver Behr of...

Hairy calculations: picturing tresses in a truer light.
July 29, 2006... Computer animators find hair tricky to portray realistically because it contains so many strands and because these strands respond in complex ways to light, wind, head motion, and each other. For blond hair in particular, some of the hair's...

Solid information: chemical composition can determine concrete's durability.
July 29, 2006... A new analysis reveals how damage progresses in concrete that's exposed to sulfate, a nearly ubiquitous compound. The work could lead to the design of concrete structures with improved durability, the report's author says. Concrete is made...

Side effect revealed; heart risk found in leukemia drug.(Imatinib from Novartis AG)
July 29, 2006... Since its introduction a few years ago, the cancer drug imatinib has given patients with chronic myelogenous leukemia an unprecedented chance at long-term survival. But studies of the drug in people and mice reveal an unexpected risk of heart...

Jovian storms of surpassing beauty.(Brief article)
July 29, 2006... In April, a visible-light image (left) taken by the Hubble Space Telescope showed that a new giant storm (red arrows) in Jupiter's southern hemisphere was about 62,000 kilometers away from the planet's centuries-old Great Red Spot storm (white...

Old mice and men: species share genetic markers of aging.(Jacob Zahn of Stanford University)
July 29, 2006... The amounts of protein produced by a particular set of genes could give researchers clues to how much a person or another animal has aged, scientists report. They say that the finding could be invaluable for developing new treatments to slow...