Science News articles from May 2004

Science News archives from May 2004

Injectable medibots: programmable DNA could diagnose and treat cancer.(This Week)
May 1, 2004... Scientists have created a miniature medical computer out of DNA that can detect cancer genes in a test tube and respond by releasing a drug. Proving what had been only a concept, the feat offers a vision of how medicine might look in the...

Din among the Orcas: are whale watchers making too much noise?(This Week)
May 1, 2004... Whale-watcher boats may be making so much noise that killer whales off the coast of Washington have to change their calls to communicate over the racket. Recordings made during the past 3 years, after a boom in whale watching in Washington...

Stone age combustion: fire use proposed at ancient Israeli site.(This Week)
May 1, 2004... Our prehistoric ancestors may have been a fiery bunch. By about 750,000 years ago, the inhabitants of a lakeshore in what is now northern Israel had learned to build fires in hearths, a research team contends. For the next 100,000 years,...

Harm from plastic additive challenged: early exposure shows no ill effects.(This Week)
May 1, 2004... A chemical used to soften plastics and that has been suspected of disrupting development showed no long-term effects in a small study of teens. As newborns, the young people had each received intensive medical care that used plastic tubing and...

Unsettling association: dental X rays linked to low-birth-weight babies.(This Week)
May 1, 2004... Getting dental X rays while pregnant might increase a woman's risk of giving birth to a low-birth-weight baby, a new study suggests. Physicians try to minimize diagnostic X rays for pregnant women because radiation is most damaging to fetal...

It's a gas: trees emit unknown volatile substances.(This Week)
May 1, 2004... The chemical reactions taking place just above a northern Michigan forest hint that trees there and elsewhere may be emitting highly reactive gases that scientists haven't yet identified or directly detected. Many plants release large...

Mouse mourned: Yoda dies at age 4.(This Week)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2004... The age-defying laboratory mouse known by his keepers as Yoda died peacefully in his cage in Ann Arbor, Mich., on April 22. The cause of death is unknown. Autopsy results are pending. The oldest known living member of his species at the time of...

The electron's other charge: workhorse of electricity shows its weak side.(This Week)
May 1, 2004... Nothing is more emblematic of an electron than its negative charge. It's the trait that determines how the particle behaves in electromagnetic environments, such as a wire's electric field and Earth's magnetic field. Yet physicists have...

Space invaders: the stuff of life has far-flung origins.(Cover Story)
May 1, 2004... When most people look up at the night sky, they see emptiness. Stars, to be sure, but mostly a black void. When Louis Allamandola, an astrochemist based at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., looks up, he sees life....

Coffee, spices, wine: new dietary ammo against diabetes?
May 1, 2004... Non-insulin-dependent diabetes is epidemic in the United States. The potentially deadly disorder afflicts some 16 million people in this country, accounting for 95 percent of all diabetes. The number of people with non-insulin-dependent...

Rovers in overtime.(Astronomy)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2004... Two field geologists working on the Red Planet just got a 5-month extension on their contract. On April 8, NASA announced it was going to extend through September the life of its twin Mars rovers, which were designed to operate for 90 Mars...

CT scan no match for colonoscopy.(Biomedicine)
May 1, 2004... Colonoscopy is better at detecting potentially dangerous colon polyps than computed tomography (CT) scanning is, a new study reveals. The conclusion differs from that of a recent report that found the two procedures to be equally effective (SN:...

Hurricanes churn up life-nurturing brews.(Earth Science)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2004... Images of the North Atlantic taken from orbit suggest that hurricanes churn the ocean's surface enough to bring cool, nutrient-rich waters to the surface, thereby stimulating algal blooms that can last for weeks. Some areas of the ocean...

Experimental drug boosts HDL counts.(Biomedicine)
May 1, 2004... A novel drug called torcetrapib can dramatically increase blood concentrations of high-density lipoprotein (HDL), the beneficial cholesterol, according to a preliminary study. Derived from a trial involving only 19 people, these data paved the...

Body's sweet move can protect heart.(Biology)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2004... Though heart tissue starved of oxygen in a heart attack for more than a few minutes typically begins to die, it doesn't always succumb--especially if the tissue has recently sustained a few short bouts of oxygen deprivation. Such a situation...

Proteins mark ALS.(Pathology)
May 1, 2004... Today, physicians diagnose people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)--better known as Lou Gehrig's disease--by process of elimination. In a series of exams that can last a year, a doctor must rule out other neurological diseases with...

SIDS trigger? It's too darn hot.(Physiology)
May 1, 2004... Infants occasionally stop breathing for short periods during sleep, a phenomenon called apnea. Working with newborn pigs, researchers from Dartmouth Medical School in Hanover, N.H., have found that overheating--even to a degree that could occur...

Exercise boosts sugar's taste.(Nutrition)
May 1, 2004... People who work out regularly often report a feeling of euphoria after exercise. Wondering how exercise affects other sensations, scientists at the Osaka (Japan) University of Health and Sport Sciences evaluated taste thresholds in competitive...

The Big Year: a Tale of Man, Nature, and Fowl Obsession.(Books: a selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... THE BIG YEAR: A Tale of Man, Nature, and Fowl Obsession MARK OBMASCIK If someone mentions extreme sports, what probably comes to mind is freestyle snowboarding or maybe stock car racing. But one of the most grueling annual competitions...

Moon Observer's Guide.(Books: a selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... MOON OBSERVER'S GUIDE PETER GREGO Readers follow the moon through its 28-day cycle and learn what each phase reveals about lunar topography. Some 3 trillion craters larger than 1 meter across and large, gray plains known as maria,...

The New Penguin Dictionary of Science: Second Edition.(Books: a selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... THE NEW PENGUIN DICTIONARY OF SCIENCE: Second Edition M.J. CLUGSTON Every branch of science is covered in this handy dictionary, which defines some 7,000 terms clearly and succinctly. In fact, most definitions are no longer than a line...

The Quantum World: Quantum Physics for Everyone.(Books: a selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... THE QUANTUM WORLD: Quantum Physics for Everyone KENNETH W. FORD Most of us think we have a pretty good grasp on reality. We're likely to believe that wood tables are solid, our Swiss-made watches keep perfect time, and an object has...

The Woodland Garden: Planting in Harmony with Nature.(Books: a selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... THE WOODLAND GARDEN: Planting in Harmony with Nature ROY FORSTER, AND ALEX DOWNIE For people whose landscapes are sheltered under a canopy of trees, this guide shows how to nurture the low-growing species that naturally cover a...

Skins game.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
May 1, 2004... I know some people who carefully shield their bodies from the sun with sunscreen and clothing, and their skin is extremely pale. But if tanning acts as a protector ("Sunny Solution: Lotion speeds DNA repair, protects mice from skin cancer," SN:...

Little splash?(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
May 1, 2004... I would guess that a rock measuring 1 kilometer across, landing near New Zealand 500 years ago, would have done much more than create a tsunami 300 to 500 feet high ("Killer Waves" SN: 3/6/04, p. 152). Was the object one km across before...

Why on Earth.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
May 1, 2004... I can think of a place other than the moon where NASA could develop a closed life-support system for staging rehearsals of manned Mars exploration ("A New Flight Plan: Back to the moon," SN: 3/13/04, p. 170). Why not Earth? Advantages would...

What babies face.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
May 1, 2004... "Born to Heal: Screening embryos to treat siblings raises hopes, dilemmas," SN: 3/13/04, p. 168) quotes a pediatrician as saying, "we're moving to selection on the basis of a trait that is of no benefit to the child to be born:" I disagree. The...

Reading program spurs neural rewrite in kids.(Words in the Brain)
May 8, 2004... A new brain-imaging study indicates that a specially designed program for second and third graders deficient in reading boosts their reading skills while prodding their brains to respond to written material in the same way that the brains of...

Frogs borrow poison for skin from ants.(Toxin Takeout)
May 8, 2004... After more than 30 years of research, scientists have found a source from which poison frogs can acquire a major group of chemical weapons. In a survey of possible frog foods in Panama, the toxins turned up in formicine ants, the subfamily that...

German site yields early hummingbird fossils.(Ancient Buzzing)
May 8, 2004... Excavations in a clay pit in southwestern Germany have yielded two tiny treasures. They're the first fossils of hummingbirds from the Old World and, by far, the oldest ones unearthed anywhere. Hummingbirds are the only birds that can fly...

Proteins suggest ways to thwart muscle loss.(Waste Not)
May 8, 2004... Old people, starving people, AIDS patients, cancer patients, and even astronauts. All these groups and others experience muscle atrophy, the wasting away of muscle fiber. Two research teams have now revealed details of the biochemical...

A new brew for the computer industry.(Next high-tech polishing fluid: tea)
May 8, 2004... Many tea drinkers know about tannins, those pesky molecules that stain teeth and ceramic mugs. Last year, John L. Lombardi, a green tea drinker, learned that makers of hard-disk drives were thirsting for a nontoxic polishing liquid that would...

Infusions help babies with Hurler's syndrome.(Cord Blood to the Rescue)
May 8, 2004... Hurler's syndrome is a rare hereditary condition caused by the lack of an enzyme needed to regulate basic cell functions. Treatments to replace the enzyme help children with the condition but don't salvage cells in all parts of the body. Bone...

A black hole's dusty environs show themselves.(Closing In on a Monster)
May 8, 2004... The first clear picture of the immediate surroundings of a supermassive black hole is confirming that these gravitational monsters hide behind thick belts of dust. The observed shroud suggests that such black holes, which weigh millions to...

Delaying dementia: drugs that fail as cures might still prevent Alzheimer's disease.
May 8, 2004... Alzheimer's disease extinguishes the mind and body through a vicious progression from mental lapses, memory loss, and dementia to the final failure of the brain to support survival. Medical efforts to abate the disorders development after...

Teen brains on trial: the science of neural development tangles with the juvenile death penalty.
May 8, 2004... Later this year, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments about whether federal law should continue to permit executions of 16- and 17-year-olds convicted of murder. On this life-or-death issue, controversial legal and ethical views on...

Fundamental constant didn't vary after all.(Physics)
May 8, 2004... A few years ago, observations of distant quasars rocked the scientific community by indicating that one of the constants of nature--the strength of the electromagnetic force--hasn't been constant throughout the universe's history. Now, an...

Uganda shows strong gains in war on AIDS.(Infectious Diseases)(Brief Article)
May 8, 2004... Uganda has shown remarkable progress against HIV, the AIDS virus, according to an analysis of health data. Since the early 1990s, H IV cases in Uganda have dropped by more than two-thirds, a decline not seen in neighboring countries. For...

Chronic vibrations constrict vessels.(Biology)(Brief Article)
May 8, 2004... Many people who work with vibrating power tools develop a syndrome that starts with pain and evolves to include tingling or numbness and sensitivity to cold. Researchers at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee think they've discovered...

Tracks of dust devils spotted from space.(Earth Science)(Brief Article)
May 8, 2004... Scientists scanning satellite images of the southern Sahara have detected trails left on the landscape by the whirlwinds commonly known as dust devils, the first such observations made from Earth orbit. Cameras on several spacecraft that...

Brain roots of music depreciation.(Psychology)(Brief Article)
May 8, 2004... Some people are inept at all things musical, whether it's playing an instrument or just recognizing a melody. Preliminary data suggest that these individuals' brains are, literally, out of tune. Neuroscientists Krista L. Hyde and Isabelle...

Humidity may affect LASIK surgery.(Biomedicine)(Brief Article)
May 8, 2004... A period of high humidity before surgery to correct nearsightedness can boost the chance that a person will need a follow-up operation, a new study of the procedure shows. Humidity apparently makes the cornea swell temporarily. That may induce...

Across the board: the Mathematics of Chessboard Problems.(Book Review)
May 8, 2004... Watkins melds the classic game of chess with the equally entertaining realm of recreational mathematics. He surveys well-known challenges based on the movements of chess pieces. For instance, the Knight's Tour Problem considers how a knight can...

The Book Nobody Read: Chasing the Revolutions of Nicolaus Copernicus.(Book Review)
May 8, 2004... In a book titled The Sleepwalkers, Arthur Koestler declared that Nicolaus Copernicus' landmark tome On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres was a book that nobody read when it was published in 1543. This was the text in which Copernicus...

Genghis Khan: And the Making of the Modern World.(Book Review)
May 8, 2004... In name alone, Genghis Khan conjures up notions of a ruthless, bloodthirsty warrior who pillaged lands far and wide. Weatherford takes much of the sting out of the reputation of Genghis Khan and the Mongol people. Unprecedented access to...

The History of Science and Technology.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 8, 2004... This chronicle encompasses more than 7,000 entries organized by subject matter. The book supplies fundamental information about, for instance, how bridges are built and homes are powered, as welt as details of inventions ranging from the...

Wider Than the Sky: the Phenomenal Gift of Consciousness.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 8, 2004... HOW does the firing of neurons give rise to subjective sensations, thoughts, and emotions? How can the disparate domains of mind and body be reconciled? Edelman, a neuroscientist and Nobel laureate, condenses his years of research and...

Listen carefully.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
May 8, 2004... Perhaps Stefan Koelsch's study should have been limited to trained musicians, rather than exclude them ("Song Sung Blue: In brain, music and language overlap," SN: 2/28/04, p. 133). Word and visual associations in music are vigorously...

Letter imperfect.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
May 8, 2004... I believe a reader rushed to judgment regarding the environmental impact of splitting water to produce hydrogen for fuel ("Letters: Dry Hole?" SN: 3/13/04, p. 175). The split water isn't ultimately consumed, only recycled. Burning hydrogen...

Correction.(Letters)(Correction Notice)
May 8, 2004... In "Shades of Venus" (SN: 4/17/04, p. 247), the credit for this depiction of the sun, Venus, and Earth was incomplete. It should have noted that the image was courtesy of Smithsonian Institution Libraries, as well as the contributors cited: Jet...

Homocysteine may weaken bones.(Bad Break)
May 15, 2004... In the 1960s, scientists discovered that people with a gene mutation that leads to extremely high concentrations of the amino acid homocysteine in their blood are prone to heart problems and bone deformities. Since then, physicians have found...

Asphalt deposits cover parts of Gulf of Mexico.(Underwater Pavement)
May 15, 2004... During explorations of the seafloor in the southern Gulf of Mexico late last year, researchers discovered peculiar lavalike flows of asphalt that had gushed down the slopes of a steep undersea knoll. The now-solid swaths of hydrocarbon-based...

Punctured fluid stays riddled.(Holey Water)
May 15, 2004... Imagine poking a liquid to create holes that persist like those in swiss cheese. Incredible as that might sound, a group of scientists has done it. Although the bizarre effect showed up only under extreme laboratory conditions, similar...

At times, children play with the impossible.(Toddlers' Supersize Mistakes)
May 15, 2004... Given the opportunity, about half of 18-to-30-month-old children will sometimes try mightily to climb into a toy car no bigger than a toaster, to sit in a dollhouse chair, or to glide down a teeny plastic slide, a new study of child behavior...

Engineered bacteria are genetic rebels.(Expanding the Code)
May 15, 2004... In an ongoing effort to push the limits of genetic engineering, researchers have created a bacterium that can incorporate artificial amino acids into its proteins and do so by breaking a fundamental rule of molecular biology. Virtually all...

Hubble's infrared camera goes the distance.(Back to the Beginning)
May 15, 2004... Astronomers have done their level best to chronicle the early history of galaxies, but there's a glaring gap in the cosmic baby album they've assembled: The first few pages are blank. Using the Hubble Space Telescope, researchers have now begun...

Rethinking refuges? Drifting pollen may bring earlier pest resistance to bioengineered crops.
May 15, 2004... Pollen wafting from bioengineered corn to traditional varieties may be undermining the fight to keep pests from evolving resistance to pesticides, according to a new study. Farmers who plant Bt corn, which is genetically engineered to make...

The rise of antibubbles: odd, soggy bubbles finally get some respect.
May 15, 2004... Two years into his doctoral research, which had him looking long and hard at bubbles rising in a liquid, Alberto Tufaile noticed something odd. Sometimes, a few small bubbles would circle around in his flasks instead of rising to the top. "I...

Glimpses of genius: mathematicians and historians piece together a puzzle that Archimedes pondered.
May 15, 2004... At the start of the 20th century, a Danish mathematical historian named Johan Ludvig Heiberg made a once-in-a-lifetime find. Tucked away in the library of a monastery in Istanbul was a medieval parchment containing copies of the works of the...

After 40-year prep, gravity test soars.(Physics)(Brief Article)
May 15, 2004... On April 20, a satellite conceived in the 1960s to test two aspects of Einstein's general theory of relativity finally roared into space from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Aside from two problems that have been solved--a backup...

Nicotine limits cold adaptation.(Biology)
May 15, 2004... Cigarette smokers commonly find that they have a hard time keeping their hands and feet warm in frigid environments. Researchers at Yale University now find that nicotine, usually considered the culprit, may play only a partial role. ...

Neandertals may have grown up quickly.(Anthropology)
May 15, 2004... A large study of the growth records preserved in fossil Neandertal teeth indicates that these controversial members of the Homo line, despite possessing large brains, grew to adulthood in a surprisingly short time span. Regarded by many...

Historical chemistry library wows scholars.(Science and Society)(Brief Article)
May 15, 2004... The Chemical Heritage Foundation in Philadelphia has acquired one of the most extensive and valuable collections of chemistry texts in the world. It was bought from private collector Robert Neville, now a retired chemist in California, who...

Boats puff up outdoor carbon monoxide risk.(Environment)(Brief Article)
May 15, 2004... Following a series of deaths and hospitalizations from carbon monoxide poisoning on an Arizona waterway, medical investigators have established that large congregations of motorboats can produce enough of the invisible, odorless gas in open air...

Plan B ruling is prescription for controversy.(Science And Society)(Brief Article)
May 15, 2004... The Food and Drug Administration has denied an application by a pharmaceutical firm to make the emergency contraceptive known as Plan B available without a doctor's prescription. That decision contravenes recent recommendations from an FDA...

Nanoparticles could mark spots for surgery.(Biomedicine)(Brief Article)
May 15, 2004... When a tumor starts spreading, cancer cells begin showing up in nearby lymph nodes. That's why cancer surgeons often remove and examine nodes as they plan treatments. A new panicle studded with gadolinium ions may soon help surgeons...

Diagnostic gadget mixes and matches all in one.(Technology)(Brief Article)
May 15, 2004... Researchers at Motorola Labs in Tempe, Ariz., have created a miniature diagnostic lab that can detect specific disease-linked genes in a small sample of whole blood. Numerous groups are developing chips that can detect tiny amounts of...

Fossil confirms that early arthropods molted.(Paleontology)
May 15, 2004... A 505-million-year-old fossil provides hard proof of what scientists had previously only suspected: Ancient arthropods shed their exoskeletons during growth, just as their modern relatives do. Arthropods, a class of animals named after the...

Dragon Bone Hill: an Ice-Age Saga of Homo erectus.(Books)(Book Review)
May 15, 2004... NOEL T. BOAZ AND RUSSELL L. CIOCHON Dragon Bone Hill--discovered in China in the 1930s--produced the largest cache of early hominid fossils the world had ever known. Included was Peking Man, today known as Homo erectus. Armed with some...

Einstein Simplified: Cartoons on Science.(Books)(Book Review)
May 15, 2004... SIDNEY HARRIS Touted here as "America's foremost science cartoonist" (perhaps a funny line in itself) Harris has a definite knack for finding humor in what is widely regarded as a dry subject. This collection has been updated and revised...

The Human Factor: Revolutionizing the Way People Live with Technology.(Books)(Book Review)
May 15, 2004... KIM VICENTE What good is technology if people can't use it properly? This is a question that Vicente, a professor of ergonomics, tackles as he evaluates machines that are inherently user-unfriendly and suggests ways for improving them....

Shakespeare's Face: Unraveling the Legend and History of Shakespeare's Mysterious Portrait.(Books)(Book Review)
May 15, 2004... STEPHANIE NOLAN In May 2001, Nolan broke the story in The Globe and Mail--Canada's national newspaper--that the only known portrait of William Shakespeare was in the cupboard of a man in Ottawa. If painted during Shakespeare's lifetime,...

Soul Made Flesh: the Discovery of the Brain and How it Changed the World.(Books)(Book Review)
May 15, 2004... CARL ZIMMER Prior to Thomas Willis' revolutionary 17th-century dissections of brains--human and animal--people generally believed that the soul's domain was the heart. Zimmer brilliantly details not only Willis' life but also the state of...

Drug benefits.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
May 15, 2004... There are added benefits to methotrexate and etanercept for rheumatoid arthritis patients, such as myself ("Two arthritis drugs work best in tandem," SN: 3/13/04, p. 174). After a recent major flare-up, my rheumatologist put me on that therapy....

Mother knows best?(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
May 15, 2004... The word love needs to be more carefully defined in the study described in "Mother and Child Disunion: Don't take a mother's love for granted" (SN: 3/20/04, p.186). Love may also mean finding the economic resources to give a child a better...

Old stars: even older: determining a new age for the universe.(This Week)
May 22, 2004... Using particle accelerators to mimic the conditions inside stars, two independent research groups have found evidence that the most-ancient known stars are about a billion years older than astronomers had estimated. This provides new evidence...

Pot on the spot: marijuana's risks become blurrier.(This Week)
May 22, 2004... The federal government's war on drugs gets plenty of ammunition from scientific studies that have correlated the use of such substances to various psychological problems. Conspicuously absent, however, are data showing that marijuana, one of...

Wind highways: mosses, lichens travel along aerial paths.(This Week)
May 22, 2004... Invisible freeways of wind may account for the similarity of plant species on islands that lie thousands of kilometers apart, according to a novel study of satellite data. NASA'S QuickSCAT satellite, launched in 1999, offered the first big...

Way to blow.(This Week)
May 22, 2004... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Caption: WAY TO BLOW Colors show how winds connected Bouvet Island to neighboring locations from Feb. 1 to 10 in 2000. Winds easily give hitchhiking plant snippets a lift from the island to areas in the brightest...

Breeds apart: purebred dogs defined by DNA differences.(This Week)
May 22, 2004... As fans of the famous Westminster Dog Show will attest, dogs come in all shapes and sizes. The most thorough DNA analysis yet of purebred dogs suggests that canine breeds, typically defined by physical features and family history, can also be...

Branching out: semiconducting nanotrees could boost electronics.(This Week)
May 22, 2004... Future electronic devices could contain forests of nanoscale trees, suggests a new study by researchers in Sweden. The research builds on work with semiconducting nanowires that are being developed in many laboratories for applications ranging...

A portrait of pollution: nation's fresh water gets a checkup.(This Week)
May 22, 2004... Virtually all of America's fresh water is tainted with low concentrations of chemical contaminants, according to the new report of an ambitious nationwide study of streams and groundwater conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey. ...

Young talent on display: tomorrow's scientists and engineers win recognition, rewards.(This Week)
May 22, 2004... In an impressive display of intellectual might, 1,429 high school students from across the country and around the globe gathered in Portland, Ore., last week to exhibit projects in the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair. More than...

Humanity's strange face: Stone Age skull stokes debate over what it takes to be human.
May 22, 2004... In June 2003, three cave researchers prepared for what they hoped would be a return to the Stone Age. The explorers strapped on scuba gear and plunged into a lake in Romania's Carpathian Mountains. These intrepid souls, led by Stefan Milota of...