Science News articles from March 2008

Science News archives from March 2008

Hairy forensics: isotopes can identify the regions where a person may have lived.(This Week)
March 1, 2008... Judging people by their hair isn't shallow, it's sound science: The proportions of certain chemical isotopes in someone's tresses can help detectives pin down that individual's region of origin and recent movements, a new study suggests. The...

True blue: electron jumps make protein shine like an LED.(This Week)(light-emitting diodes)
March 1, 2008... A protein known to chemists for its bright blue fluorescence may not be fluorescent after all. Instead, it gives offlight by a mechanism similar to that of light-emitting diodes (LEDs), chemists report. The finding suggests that some of the...

Hefty find: density has starring role in making stars massive.(This Week)
March 1, 2008... From their earliest moments, massive stars play the heavy. As infants, their fierce winds and harsh ultraviolet radiation tear away at the fragile gas clouds in which their lighter-weight cousins are born. Eventually, these behemoths explode,...

Drug or no drug: placebos may be more than appeasing.(This Week)
March 1, 2008... Antidepressant drugs such as Prozac generally fall short of providing significantly more relief to depressed patients than placebo pills do, according to a new analysis of multiple clinical trials obtained from the Food and Drug Administration...

Greener green energy: today's solar cells give more than they take.(This Week)
March 1, 2008... Solar power produces, per unit of energy, only about one-tenth as much carbon dioxide and other harmful emissions as does conventional power generation, a new study shows. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Solar panels don't release harmful gases...

Pinning down malaria's global reach.(This Week)(Brief article)
March 1, 2008... Local governments and organizations that fund malaria research need proper maps of its spread to allocate resources effectively, but it has been 40 years since scientists last cobbled together an accurate worldwide view. Using data from more...

Hidden depths: Antarctic krill startle deep-ocean scientists.(This Week)
March 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Biologists looked into the abyss and the abyss looked back, with lots of little compound krill eyes. The shrimplike Antarctic krill, a major player in polar ecosystems, is supposedly a creature of the upper...

Digging that Maya blue.(This Week)(Brief article)
March 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Before plucking the hearts from humans and tossing the bodies into the sacred cenote, the sacrificial well, the Maya of Chichen Itza painted their offerings blue--Maya blue. The process for making the unusual...

Micromanagers: new classes of RNAs emerge as key players in the brain.(ribonucleic acid)
March 1, 2008... RNA compels Georges St. Laurent III to go to the gym. The genetic molecule inspires him to eat right and take care of himself. His efforts are all aimed at maintaining the delicate machinery housed in his cells. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ...

Nurturing our microbes: stewardship of the life teeming within us can pay health dividends.
March 1, 2008... Each of us is a metropolis. Bustling about in everyone's body are tens of trillions of microbes. Some are descended from starter populations provided by mom during birth. Additional bacteria, yeasts, and other life forms hitchhike in with...

Gene variants shield against depression.(BEHAVIOR)(Brief article)
March 1, 2008... Not all child-abuse survivors are created equal. A minority possess specific variations in a stress-regulating gene that protect them from developing serious forms of depression as adults, a new study finds. Adults who were abused as...

Resistance to Bt crops emerges.(AGRICULTURE)(genetically modified crops)
March 1, 2008... Some caterpillars are cot-toning to transgenic cotton. Genetically engineered cotton and corn produce a toxin that kills caterpillar larvae and other pests, but a new study shows that resistance to this toxin could be spreading among one...

Predators return.(ECOLOGY)(Brief article)
March 1, 2008... Antarctica may be the battleground for the next world war. Crabs, sharks, and other predators vanquished from the frigid continent millions of years ago are ready to strike back, researchers say. Propelled by the fast-warming Southern...

Meetings.(AGRICULTURE)
March 1, 2008... American Association for the Advancement of Science Boston, Mass., Feb. 14-18

Diamond detectors.(NANOTECHNOLOGY)(Brief article)
March 1, 2008... Diamond impurities can detect extremely weak magnetic fields. Probes with diamond tips might soon become sensitive enough to track single atomic nuclei in molecules by their magnetism, enabling the observation of atoms' motion during chemical...

Dioxin's long reach.(ENVIRONMENT)(Brief article)
March 1, 2008... Breast development is delayed in teenage girls exposed to the pollutant dioxin in the womb and as infants, finds a long-term Dutch study that tracked mother-baby pairs from birth through puberty. "Dioxin throws a monkey wrench into a number...

New dating finds oldest coral yet.(OCEANOGRAPHY)(Brief article)
March 1, 2008... A black coral collected near the Hawaiian Islands may set a new record for age among coral kind: some 4,200 years. The meter-plus-tall specimen of Leiopathes glaberrima turns out to be older than corals previously studied by Brendan Roark...

Sun, inflammation speed aging of skin.(BIOMEDICINE)
March 1, 2008... Sun exposure leads to wrinkles in double time, new research shows. Inflammation makes the difference between young, supple skin and aged skin, say researchers at P&G Beauty, a cosmetics company in Cincinnati. Company scientists, led by...

Great spots for white sharks.(ZOOLOGY)(Brief article)
March 1, 2008... Great white sharks, supposedly ravenous nomads scouring the seas for hapless seals and surfers, show serious site fidelity, returning to the same neighborhoods every summer along the California coast. Data from more than 100 tagged sharks...

Your Inner Fish.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
March 1, 2008... YOUR INNER FISH NEIL SHUBIN With a title that could easily be A Fish's Inner Human, this book commences from the eerie resemblance of fin bones to human arm and wrist bones seen in a 375-million-year-old fossil of the fish Tiktaalik...

Mathematics and Democracy.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
March 1, 2008... MATHEMATICS AND DEMOCRACY STEVEN J. BRAMS In the 2000 presidential election, the Green Party candidate Ralph Nader received only 2.7 percent of the vote, yet this percentage affected the close contest between the Republican and Democratic...

Built by Animals.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
March 1, 2008... BUILT BY ANIMALS MIKE HANSELL "Wombats Detected from Space" is the title of a scientific article published in a 1980 Remote Sensing of Environment. Burrows of these hardy mammals may stretch more than 260 feet deep, creating bare patches...

The Heart.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
March 1, 2008... THE HEART JAMES PETO, ED. When mummifying a corpse, the ancient Egyptians would discard the brain but leave the heart inside the chest so that the gods could weigh it, Peto writes. Centuries later, the heart remains spiritually...

Dinomummy.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Children's review)(Book review)
March 1, 2008... DINOMUMMY PHILLIP LARS MANNING When Tyler Lyson was 16, he discovered a nearly complete duck-billed dinosaur skeleton, still containing fossilized soft tissue, in the Hell Creek Formation in the Badlands of North Dakota. He contacted...

Big evolvers.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2008... Regarding "Whales Drink Sounds: Hearing may use an ancient path" (SN: 2/9/08, p. 84), I have heard that whales evolved millions of years ago into their present form, including their very large brains. We humans must be relatively recent in...

Want munchies with that?(LETTERS)(Brief article)
March 1, 2008... Regarding "Pot Downer: Marijuana users risk gum disease" (SN: 2/9/08, p. 85), a familiar side effect of marijuana smoking is increased appetite, often for sweet foods. It is doubtful that the marijuana smokers immediately rush to brush their...

Getting to the heart.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2008... Regarding "9/11 attacks stoked U.S. heart ailments" (SN: 1/26/08, p. 61): We must dissociate the attacks themselves from the intense media barrage that followed. Under the guise of providing information, the press seemed intent on inflaming our...

Cancer risk: colon growths might not be so obvious.(This Week)
March 8, 2008... The fight against colorectal cancer, by most accounts, is going well. With colonoscopy, doctors can prevent most of these malignancies by detecting and removing polyps, growths along the colon that can be precancerous. But some people who have...

Ancient chasm: parts of Grand Canyon may be 17 million years old.(This Week)
March 8, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Studies of mineral formations found in caves in the walls of the Grand Canyon and nearby may provide fresh insight into the chasm's history, including its age and the rate at which it was carved. Many of these...

Supernova outbreak: X rays signal earliest alert.(This Week)
March 8, 2008... Thanks to a lucky break and an overactive galaxy, astronomers have for the first time caught a massive star in the act of exploding. An X-ray outburst recently recorded by NASA's Swift satellite suggests that researchers began viewing the...

Riff riders: brain scans tune in to jazz improvisers.(This Week)
March 8, 2008... It would come as no surprise to the late saxophonist and improvisational master John Coltrane, but when accomplished jazz musicians play free-form, their brain activity suggests a release of self-expression from conscious monitoring and...

Aging factor: gene mutations may be key to long life.(This Week)
March 8, 2008... Juicing up with growth hormones may build muscles, but probably won't help you live to see 100 candles on your birthday cake, a new study suggests. A study of 384 aged Ashkenazi Jews shows that a decrease in insulinlike growth factor 1...

Black hole of light: laser pulses create model of event horizon.(This Week)
March 8, 2008... If you've ever drifted so close to a waterfall that you could no longer swim fast enough to get away, then you pretty much know what it's like to fall into a black hole. Researchers have now created a laboratory analog of such a point of no...

Promiscuous orchids.(This Week)(Brief article)
March 8, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Some orchids use sexual deception to entice a pollinator, mimicking the scent of a specific female wasp, for example. This plant-pollinator monogamy maintains genetic isolation and prevents undesirable pollen from...

A way forward: releasing the brakes on cancer vaccines.(This Week)
March 8, 2008... Scientists have tried for decades to create vaccines that spur a cancer patient's immune system into attacking tumors, but cancer cells cleverly defuse the attack. Research in mice now suggests a new way to overcome these defenses and rally the...

Ocean ups and downs--the long view.(This Week)(Brief article)
March 8, 2008... [ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED] About 80 million years ago, no land-based ice sheets existed. Also, a larger proportion of the world's ocean crust rode higher than now on underlying mantle, so oceans were shallower. Computer models suggest that...

Rotten remedy: hydrogen sulfide joins the list of the body's friendly, if foul, gases.
March 8, 2008... Hydrogen sulfide deserves its bad reputation. It's famous for filling the air of high school chemistry labs with the smell of rotten eggs. One strong whiff of the noxious gas can knock you to the ground. Too much can kill you. Aside from...

Twice upon a time: jaw fossils point to multiple origins of the most mammalian of features.(Cover story)
March 8, 2008... Tom Rich has an eye for finding bits of skulls in unlikely places. In January, he and his team reported finding a slight groove in a half inch-long jaw. Using a modified CT scanner, the researchers scrutinized the fossil they had unearthed in...

Eau de fruit fly.(GENETICS)(Brief article)
March 8, 2008... A single scent moves female fruit files to swoon and males to flee. The difference, new research shows, is in the brain's wiring. Male flies on the prowl put out a pheromone called cis-vaccenyl acetate (cVA) that both sexes detect with...

Manifest dirt.(SEDIMENTOLOGY)( soil and dust research)(Brief article)
March 8, 2008... Nineteenth-century settlers left a dusty mark on the West. Rocky Mountain lake deposits reveal that America's westward expansion kicked huge amounts of dirt into the air--probably from livestock grazing. A team led by Jason Neff, a...

Fungi aid immune system's fight.(IMMUNOLOGY)(Brief article)
March 8, 2008... Scientists have discovered that white button mushrooms, the plain Janes of edible fungi, are actually quite stimulating. Their powder seems to jump-start the immune response of cells taken from mice, a new study finds. Researchers had...

Raising doubts about Crohn's treatment.(BIOMEDICINE)(Crohn's disease)
March 8, 2008... The conventional drug regimen prescribed for people with Crohn's disease might not be the best strategy, a new study shows. Crohn's disease is marked by inflammation and ulcers in the intestines. It has no cure, but patients often get...

Encyclopedia of Life starts online--at times.(SCIENCE AND SOCIETY)(Brief article)
March 8, 2008... The project to create an online Encyclopedia of Life with a Web page for every species has taken its first, baby steps. The flee-access, scientifically vetted encyclopedia, headquartered at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.,...

Some corals buffered from warming.(ENVIRONMENT)(Brief article)
March 8, 2008... Some western Pacific corals seem to be weathering global warming. Despite a warming ocean, reefs off Micronesia, Polynesia, and Melanesia suffered relatively little bleaching in the past 25 years, new research suggests. Bleaching occurs...

Calling all clues ...(FORENSICS)(flip-open cell phones )(Brief article)
March 8, 2008... Add flip-open cell phones to the list of crime-scene items that might harbor a suspect's DNA. After seeing media coverage of a crime in which a suspect had bled on a cell phone that he later dropped, Meghan J. McFadden, a molecular...

Finding mass graves from on high.(REMOTE SENSING)(Brief article)
March 8, 2008... Aerial surveys that scan the ground at many wavelengths, some visible and some not, may offer a way to quickly and easily detect clandestine mass grave sites. During field tests in Costa Rica, Mar approximately equal to that of eight adult...

Science, Evolution, and Creationism.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
March 8, 2008... SCIENCE, EVOLUTION, AND CREATIONISM NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES AND THE INSTITUTE OF MEDICINE Accepting evolution doesn't mean losing one's religion, assert the authors, a diverse group of experts. "Science and religion are different ways...

Venomoua Animals of the World.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Venomous Animals of the World)(Brief article)(Book review)
March 8, 2008... VENOMOUS ANIMALS OF THE WORLD STEVE BACKSHALL Decked out in flashy warning colors, many of the most venomous animals are often the most glamorous. As a result, this book featuring large-format photographs of more than 60...

Welcome to Your Brain: Why You Forget Your Car Keys but Never Forget How to Drive and Other Puzzles of Everyday Life.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
March 8, 2008... WELCOME TO YOUR BRAIN: Why You Forget Your Car Keys but Never Forget How to Drive and Other Puzzles of Everyday Life SANDRA AAMODT AND SAM WANG The human brain is more like a crowded Chinese restaurant than a computer, write...

Cold Light: Creatures, Discoveries, and Inventions That Glow.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Young adult review)(Brief article)(Book review)
March 8, 2008... COLD LIGHT: Creatures, Discoveries, and Inventions That Glow ANITA SITARSKI Fireflies and fires have this in common: Light is emitted from electrons as they lose energy. Fires and light bulbs are left out as Sitarski chronicles "cold...

Beyond the Nanoworld: Quarks, Leptons, and Gauge Bosons.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
March 8, 2008... BEYOND THE NANOWORLD: Quarks, Leptons, and Gauge Bosons HANS GUNTER DOSCH The physics of subatomic particles was the 20th century's quintessential big science. Discovering the building blocks of matter required smashing particles at...

No cure yet.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
March 8, 2008... "Prozac makes new neurons mature faster" (SN: 2/9/08, p. 83) suggests that growth of new brain cells, along with increasing connections, may mediate some of the effect of some SSRIs. Since these new cells would likely persist significantly...

Formulating change.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
March 8, 2008... I've looked at the table for "FY '09 budget proposal ups physical sciences" (SN: 2/9/08, p. 86). No way do I understand where the percent changes come from. A change from $80,192 million to $80,494 million is listed as a 1.6 percent decrease....

Correction.(LETTERS)(Correction notice)
March 8, 2008... "Galaxies may hail from early universe" (SN: 2/16/08, p. 100) was obscure about the brightness of one group of distant galaxies observed by a team that includes Richard Ellis and Johan Richard of the California Institute of Technology. The...

State of the universe: microwave glow powers cosmic insights.(This Week)(Table)
March 15, 2008... New observations of the oldest light in the universe have enabled astronomers to determine the age of the cosmos with unprecedented precision, infer the existence of a vast sea of neutrinos, and better gauge the start and duration of the...

Roll up your sleeve: hypertension vaccine passes early test.(This Week)
March 15, 2008... A new vaccine lowers blood pressure in hypertensive people, a study shows. The finding breaks ground in a field dominated by drug therapy. Surges in blood pressure make physical exertion possible, but chronically elevated pressure spells...

Common age: worms, yeast, and people share genes for aging.(This Week)
March 15, 2008... Genetic changes that slow aging in roundworms also keep the lowly baker's yeast from going rapidly over the hill, new research shows. Humans have many of these same genes, and drugs targeting them might eventually turn back our own biological...

Gator aids: gators squish lungs around to dive and roll.(This Week)(Alligators)
March 15, 2008... Alligators turn out to have an unappreciated power organ for maneuvering underwater: their lungs. Four sets of muscles in the lower part of the gator torso clench during particular phases of diving and rolling, says T.J. Uriona of the...

Weather maker.(This Week)(North Atlantic's Gulf Stream )(Brief article)
March 15, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The North Atlantic's Gulf Stream affects the overlying atmosphere more strongly than previously suspected. Surface waters of the 100-kilometer-wide current (white, with Florida bottom left) can be significantly...

Small wonders: tiny islanders elevate 'hobbit' debate.(This Week)
March 15, 2008... Randy Newman once jokingly sang that "short people got no reason to live." But he never met the extinct, half-sized humans found in the South Pacific that, long after their deaths, have now entered a heated scientific debate. The debate began...

Dual role: painkiller may affect brain.(This Week)
March 15, 2008... A class of drugs being developed to stop pain could also obstruct memory formation. The new painkillers aim to block molecules that respond to burning sensations, like those delivered by chili peppers, camphor, and heat from a fire. Those...

Tomorrow's stars: Intel Science Talent Search honors high achievers.(This Week)
March 15, 2008... As is fitting for a member of the MySpace generation, Shivani Sud has the individual in mind. She developed a model for assessing a person's genetic profile, first to determine individual risk for recurrence of colon cancer and then to tailor a...

Beyond blood: next-generation MRI scans offer a sharper picture of the brain's inner workings.
March 15, 2008... The test subject lies on his back, legs stretching from the tunnel-shaped brain scanner. Flat-screen computer monitors fill the cramped control room for the MRI machine. The subject watches one screen, where phrases flash, such as "Jesus is the...

The next ocean: humanity's extra C[O.sub.2] could brew a new kind of sea.(calcium carbonates)
March 15, 2008... Terrie Klinger is starting to wonder about the future of kelp sex. It's a delicate business in the best of times, and the 21st century is putting marine life to the acid test. Klinger, of the University of Washington in Seattle, studies the...

Too speedy for gravity?(PHYSICS)(Brief article)
March 15, 2008... Ya got trouble, my friend. Trouble with a capital T and that rhymes with G and that stands for gravity. A new analysis suggests that when five different spacecraft flew past Earth several years ago, they gained more speed than can be...

Altruistic twist in market economies.(BEHAVIOR)(Brief article)
March 15, 2008... Democratic societies with market economies have a reputation as cauldrons of competition, materialism, and greed. There's another side to that coin, though. These societies also foster cooperation among strangers in order to achieve a common...

Cellulose that stiffens and softens.(MATERIALS SCIENCE)
March 15, 2008... A new material inspired by the skin of sea cucumbers goes from firm to flabby in minutes. The substance could find wide use in medicine--including as brain implants. Sea cucumbers tense up in seconds by linking the collagen fibers of their...

Pick a photo, any photo.(NEUROSCIENCE)(Brief article)
March 15, 2008... The guessing game 20 Questions might be won with a quick scan of an opponent's brain. Researchers have developed a way to measure how the human brain reacts to pictures--and to predict what images people are gazing at. Though a long way...

Exercises counteract lazy eye.(BIOMEDICINE)(Brief article)
March 15, 2008... An innovative set of eye exercises enables people with amblyopia, or lazy eye, to improve their vision, researchers report. Amblyopia stems from a youthful eye injury, disease, or defect that induces the brain to "give up" on signals from...

New technique brings Parkinson's treatment closer.(BIOMEDICINE)(Parkinson's disease)
March 15, 2008... In a step toward using stem cells to treat Parkinson's disease, scientists in South Korea have developed a consistent and efficient way to convert human embryonic stem cells into dopamine-producing nerve cells. People with Parkinson's...

City life changes style of weed seeds.(BOTANY)(Brief article)
March 15, 2008... Urban living quickly drives a species of little yellow flower to make seeds that end up living with mum, say researchers in France. A member of the dandelion family, Crepis sancta naturally produces two kinds of seeds. Most grow a miniature...

Environment: An Interdisciplinary Anthology.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
March 15, 2008... ENVIRONMENT: An Interdisciplinary Anthology GLENN ADELSON, JAMES ENGELL, BRENT RANALLI, AND K.P. VAN ANGLEN, EDS. This anthology of contemporary and historical writings encompasses disparate environmental issues while also exploring each...

Making Mathematics with Needlework.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
March 15, 2008... MAKING MATHEMATICS WITH NEEDLEWORK SARAH-MARIE BELCASTRO AND CAROLYN YACKEL, EDS. Math and crafts are two words not often spoken together. Belcastro and Yackel aim to change that with the first book to combine mathematical ideas with...

Earth: The Sequel: The Race to Reinvent Energy and Stop Global Warming.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
March 15, 2008... EARTH: THE SEQUEL The Race to Reinvent Energy and Stop Global Warming FRED KRUPP AND MIRIAM HORN Industrialization has put Earth at the brink of climate calamity, say Krupp and Horn. Here, they describe a possible remedy, what they call "a...

Symmetry: A Journey into the Patterns of Nature.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
March 15, 2008... SYMMETRY: A Journey into the Patterns of Nature MARCUS DU SAUTOY Anyone who's stared at an M.C. Escher print knows the allure of geometrical symmetry. Bumblebees, too, prefer to pollinate symmetrical flowers, and many ancient cultures based...

Gems of the World.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
March 15, 2008... GEMS OF THE WORLD CALLY OLDERSHAW Diamonds, sapphires, rubies, opals, or emeralds--whatever your stone, Oldershaw knows how to identify, rate, and care for it. The rarer a beautiful gem, the greater the value, she says. And its durability...

Alpha bird(s).(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
March 15, 2008... There is a detail not explicit in the article "Birds network too" (SN: 2/23/08, p. 125) that fits the computer network analogy. By its flight path, each bird adds its personal input and helps guide the course of the flock. DON BURNAP,...

Seeing is believing.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
March 15, 2008... "Extreme Measures" (SN: 2/16/08, p. 107) was wonderful. We have had light and electron microscopes. Can we look forward to atom-wave microscopes? BILL SCHINOELE, THOUSAND OAKS, CALIF. Yes. A team led by Bodil Holst at Graz University...

More Web threads.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
March 15, 2008... Regarding "Biological Moon Shot" (SN: 2/2/08, p. 72), there is already a Web site that also aims to answer "What's in my backyard?" At ZipcodeZoo.com, David Stang has assembled close to 3 million pages of information (one species per page)...

Bad blood? Old units might be substandard.(This Week)
March 22, 2008... Unsettling new evidence suggests that blood stored for more than 2 weeks might be less beneficial to recipients recovering from cardiac surgery than is fresher blood. While the study falls short of heralding a wholesale change in blood-banking...

Love code: a twist of light only mantis shrimp can see.(This Week)
March 22, 2008... For love, some would twist the laws of physics. Short of doing that, mantis shrimp communicate with the other sex by spinning light waves, biologists find. The feat seems to be unique to this animal. Light is made of electromagnetic waves....

Finch concerts: female bird brain notes male attention.(This Week)
March 22, 2008... He knows she's listening. And now we know that she knows he knows. Using the word "know" loosely, that's a simplified version of a new analysis of zebra finches by neuroscientists at the University of California, San Francisco. Sarah...

Long-life link: gut protein ties low insulin to longevity.(This Week)
March 22, 2008... Roundworms low on insulin tend to live longer, and a new study" identifies a protein that helps explain the effect. Low insulin levels increase this protein's activity in the gut, where the protein can extend longevity by helping cells avoid...

In the beginning: more early clues for life at home, out there.(This Week)
March 22, 2008... Astronomers have just moved closer to understanding how the raw ingredients for life may have arisen on Earth as well as on planets light-years beyond the solar system. One team, using the Hubble Space Telescope, has for the first time...