Science News articles from May 2005

Science News archives from May 2005

Alive and knocking: glimpses of an ivory-billed legend.(This Week)
May 7, 2005... A 4-second video released last week and reports of brief glimpses by seven observers have convinced many biologists and birders that the famed ivory-billed woodpecker has not gone extinct after all. The third-largest woodpecker in the...

Planetary picture? Criteria for planethood cloud object's identity.(This Week)
May 7, 2005... When is a Jupiterlike object a planet and when is it just a blob of gas? That's the question that astronomers are debating this week after two teams independently confirmed that a distant speck of light recorded a year ago is the first image of...

Long live the mammals: antioxidant redirection extends mouse life span.(This Week)
May 7, 2005... Cranking up the amount of antioxidants naturally produced in the body and directing those molecules to where they're needed can dramatically slow the aging process, according to a new study in mice. The finding adds credence to the...

Nanowaste: predicting the environmental fate of buckyballs.(This Week)
May 7, 2005... As companies gear up to make industrial quantities of nanomaterials, worries mount about the safety of these products should they end up contaminating the environment. A new study indicates that buckyballs, one of the most well-studied...

Mind the gap: inadequate monitoring at many U.S. volcanoes.(This Week)
May 7, 2005... A report just released by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) ranks the threats posed by the nation's volcanoes, identifies gaps in monitoring at and around those peaks, and proposes a comprehensive early-warning system for volcanic unrest and...

Microwavable cancers: heat plus radiation shrinks some tumors.(This Week)
May 7, 2005... The idea of heating a tumor to make it more vulnerable to radiation treatment has had appeal for decades. But tests in the early 1990s yielded negative or inconsistent results. In Europe, the methods for this tricky procedure have improved...

Ancient mariners: caves harbor view of early Egyptian sailors.(This Week)
May 7, 2005... On Christmas Day last year, Kathryn Bard got an unusual gift. Working with her colleagues to remove sand from a hillside along Egypt's Red Sea coast, the Boston University archaeologist poked through a small opening that had appeared and...

Radio-a-wreck: a post-9/11 challenge of communicating through catastrophe.
May 7, 2005... On Saturday Dec. 18, 2004, at 7:30 a.m. in downtown Washington, D.C., a succession of ground-shaking explosions raced through the city's 22-year-old convention center. Hundreds watched in awe as the immense structure, covering 11 acres,...

Decades of dinner: underwater community begins with the remains of a whale.(Cover Story)
May 7, 2005... Oceanographer Craig Smith remembers standing on the deck of a research ship in 1987, amazed at what two grad students had brought up from the deep. The team was nearing the end of a research cruise off the coast of California, and the students...

Shape shifter.(MATERIALS SCIENCE)(deformed polymer rods exposed to ultra violet light revert to original shape)(Brief Article)
May 7, 2005... Scientists have created polymer rods that, even after being grossly deformed, will revert toward their original shape when exposed to ultraviolet (UV) light. Andreas Lendlein at GKSS Research Center in Teltow, Germany, and his colleagues...

Surgical risk from painkiller may be brief.(BIOMEDICINE)(Brief Article)
May 7, 2005... Physicians often advise patients not to use painkillers such as aspirin and ibuprofen in the week or so before a planned surgery because those drugs inhibit blood clotting and can increase the risk of serious bleeding in the operating room. A...

Change of fuel could extend lives in Africa.(SCIENCE AND SOCIETY)(wood and dung household energy induces premature deaths)(Brief Article)
May 7, 2005... Almost all rural Africans and nearly three-quarters of those in urban centers use some combination of wood, dried dung, and charcoal as their primary source of household energy. By exclusively burning charcoal or, better yet, kerosene or...

Marijuana ingredient slows artery hardening.(BIOMEDICINE)(Brief Article)
May 7, 2005... A new animal study suggests that low doses of the chemical that causes marijuana's high may halt the progression of atherosclerosis, a disease that narrows and hardens blood vessels. Atherosclerosis starts when a vessel's inner wall becomes...

Mitochondria genes may influence cancer risk.(CELL BIOLOGY)(Brief Article)
May 7, 2005... People with cancers of the kidney or prostate are more likely to have a certain genetic variant in the mitochondria within their cells than are people without these malignancies. The discovery might offer a way to identify people at highest...

Anti-inflammatory, anticholesterol drugs vs. cancer.(PHARMACOLOGY)(combination drug therapy)
May 7, 2005... Cholesterol-lowering drugs, especially when combined with anti-inflammatory medication, may inhibit some cancers, two studies suggest. Tapping into a database that tracks the health of more than 51,000 middle-aged and elderly men,...

Calcium's lingering effect slows growths.(BIOMEDICINE)(calcium supplements for colorectal cancer treatment)(Brief Article)
May 7, 2005... Taking calcium supplements protects against colorectal cancer even years after a person stops taking them, a study finds. Starting in the early 1990s, scientists randomly assigned 930 patients with a history of precancerous growths in the...

Anti-inflammatories cut risk of mouth cancer.(BIOMEDICINE)(Brief Article)
May 7, 2005... Taking over-the-counter anti-inflammatory drugs can cut a smoker's likelihood of developing mouth cancer, a study from Norway suggests. Smoking is a known risk factor for developing this malignancy. Researchers tracked the health of smokers...

Novel drug may take on lung cancer.(MICROBIOLOGY)(testing HKI-272 drug for lung cancer)(Brief Article)
May 7, 2005... In several kinds of cancer, malignant cells display an excess of a specific type of surface receptor, which when stimulated causes unchecked growth of such cells (SN: 9/11/04, p. 164). Scientists now report that a novel agent bottles up...

Meetings.(American Association for Cancer Research meetings )(Brief Article)
May 7, 2005... American Association for Cancer Research Anaheim, Calif., April 16-20

Insights from Insects: What Bad Bugs Can Teach Us.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(book by Gilbert Waldbauer)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 7, 2005... GILBERT WALDBAUER On the whole, bugs get a bum rap. Insects perform invaluable services toward the maintenance of Earth's ecosystems. Nonetheless, about 2 percent of insects do qualify as pests. In this book, Waldbauer exposes the hidden...

Robots: From Science Fiction to Technological Revolution.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(book by Daniel Ichbiah)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 7, 2005... DANIEL ICHBIAH Many people know that the word robot came from rabota, meaning servant or serf, coined in 1921 by Czech writer Karel Capek in his play "R.U.R." But the history of robots goes much further back. Some of the earliest ones,...

The Golden Spruce: A True Story of Myth, Madness, and Greed.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(book by John Vaillant)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 7, 2005... JOHN VAILLANT The golden spruce was a 165-foot-tall mutant that survived 300 years and was revered by the Haida Indians of the Queen Charlotte Islands in British Columbia. Other locals loved it as well, and even the logging companies...

The New Quotable Einstein.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(book edited by Alice Calaprice)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 7, 2005... ALICE CALAPRICE, ED. Published on the 100th anniversary of the theory of special relativity and the 50th anniversary of Albert Einstein's death, this expanded, paperback edition of The New Quotable Einstein features the scientist's musings...

The Math Instinct: Why You're a Mathematical Genius (Along With Lobsters, Birds, Cats, and Dogs).(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(book by Keith Devlin)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 7, 2005... KEITH DEVLIN Ever wonder how migrating birds navigate or how a dog knows just where to run to intercept a thrown ball? Both feats can be explained by complex mathematical computations on paper. However, the animals don't know that. They...

Clearer yet.(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
May 7, 2005... "Weighing In on a Star: A stellar size limit" (SN: 3/12/05, p. 164) includes three images of the Arches cluster near the center of the Milky Way, each taken with a different telescope. I'd be interested to know what the three telescopes are....

Lifeless discussion.(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
May 7, 2005... The many reports of the explorations of Mars looking for water ("Martian Landscaping: Spacecraft eyes evidence of a frozen sea," SN: 3/5/05, p. 149) seem to be motivated by mere curiosity. Even if water is found on Mars, the lack of a Martian...

Old news but bad news.(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
May 7, 2005... You may be aware that nanoparticles from sources such as diesel engines have clearly been shown to be a major component of the exposures causing thousands of human deaths in the London smog of 1952. So, the news regarding synthetic nanoscale...

Cause or effect?(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
May 7, 2005... I am troubled by the conclusion drawn in "College may endow memory to old brains" (SN: 3/26/05, p. 205). The report says that college-educated adults do better on memory tests, displaying pronounced frontal brain activity, than do their...

Proteins' promise: new test could reveal early ovarian cancer.(This Week)(ovarian cancer diagnostic tool)
May 14, 2005... A test that measures protein concentrations in the blood can signal the presence of ovarian cancer, a new study shows. The finding brings scientists a step closer to a diagnostic tool for catching this stealthy cancer early enough for effective...

Built for blurs: jellyfish have great eyes that can't focus.(This Week)(evolutionary biology)
May 14, 2005... Eight of the eyes on a box jellyfish have surprisingly good lenses, yet the structure of the eyes keeps them from focusing sharply, according to a new optics study. Sharp focus may be what people and most other vertebrates want out of...

Fleeting flash: pinpointing a short gamma-ray burst.(This Week)
May 14, 2005... An invisible, highly energetic flash detected by a spacecraft early this week may have given astronomers their first glimpse of two neutron stars crashing together, forging a black hole at a galaxy's edge. NASA's Swift satellite detected...

DNA's moody temperament: gene variant linked to depression-ready brain.(This Week)
May 14, 2005... Scientists have for the first time seen what a genetic predisposition to depression looks like in the brain. Brain images show that people who inherit a short version of a particular gene have poor control over neural reactions to threats and...

Watch and wait, or not: studies weigh risks of delaying prostate surgery.(This Week)
May 14, 2005... Two long-running studies of men with prostate cancer have partly clarified the risks of postponing treatment of the disease. A wait-and-watch approach increases some men's odds of premature death, compared with the odds in men who opt for...

Metal rebel: under extreme pressure, sodium breaks the rules for turning into liquid.(This Week)
May 14, 2005... In a demonstration that defies basic assumptions in physics, researchers have created liquid sodium at room temperature. As a member of the alkali metals--the first column in the periodic table--sodium is considered to be one of the...

In its own image: simple robot replicates itself block by block.(This Week)
May 14, 2005... No robot can reproduce the way that algal cells, begonias, and people can. However, an automaton that's little more than a stack of blocks has shown that it, too, can make more of its own kind. Self-replicating robots could be a boon for...

Something to chew on: hard facts about tooth enamel.
May 14, 2005... If you're not sitting in the dentist's office reading this article, chances are that your tooth enamel is doing its job, at least for now. This protective ceramic-like veneer, thick as a dime, is the strongest material in the human body. It's...

Learning to listen: how some vertebrates evolved biological sonar.(Cover Story)
May 14, 2005... The aggressor swoops low over the treetops, piercing the night with a barrage of sonar pulses and searching for telltale data bouncing back. Some prospective targets perceive the ultrasound, take evasive action, and escape. Others, the unwary...

Waking up that lazy eye.(BIOMEDICINE)(amblyopia treatment)(Brief Article)
May 14, 2005... In amblyopia--"lazy eye"--the brain prefers images from one eye over the other. Most doctors treat the condition in children by patching the good eye for part of each day, but assume that the practice doesn't work past age 10. Some doctors give...

Air pollution linked to wheat diseases.(AGRICULTURE)(Brief Article)
May 14, 2005... Wheat is vulnerable to fungal maladies, known as septoria-blotch diseases, that reduce the ability of the plants' leaves to carry out photosynthesis. For reasons unknown, the relative roles played by the two fungi that cause these...

Crystal clear.(CHEMISTRY)(using polymorphs for drug development)(Brief Article)
May 14, 2005... Growing drug crystals on polymer surfaces could greatly improve a critical step in the development of pharmaceuticals, a new study suggests. Many drug molecules can assume a variety of crystal structures, or polymorphs. Because polymorphs...

Test puts pedal to heavy metal.(ASTROPHYSICS)(supernova)(Brief Article)
May 14, 2005... Cosmic atom factories crank out gold and other heavy elements faster than scientists had suspected. So say physicists who have made the first measurement ever of the half-life of the isotope nickel-78. Scientists consider stellar...

Scales tilt against five-quark particles.(PARTICLE PHYSICS)(pentaquarks existence)
May 14, 2005... May the best data win. In the past 2 years, evidence has quickly mounted for the existence of pentaquarks, never-before-seen subatomic particles theoretically composed of five quarks or antiquarks, which are fundamental constituents of matter....

Galactic data shore up a constant.(ASTROPHYSICS)
May 14, 2005... The first galactic test for possible variations in a fundamental constant of nature has found no evidence for change. The new findings raise doubts about a 2001 report by quasar observers that alpha, a presumed constant that figures into the...

Meetings.(American Physical society)(Calendar)
May 14, 2005... American Physical society Tampa, Florida April 16-19

FAB: The Coming Revolution on Your Desktop--from Personal Computers to Personal Fabrication.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 14, 2005... FAB: The Coming Revolution on Your Desktop--from Personal Computers to Personal Fabrication NEIL GERSHENFELD One day, people will be able to make almost anything they want with the help of a personal fabricator (PF). Though this may...

The Bomb: A Life.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(book by Gerard J. Degroot)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 14, 2005... THE BOMB: A Life GERARD J. DEGROOT In the 60 years since the first atomic bomb was detonated, such weapons have shaped not just military doctrine but also how people look at life. In this new history, DeGroot discusses atomic and...

Carnivorous Nights: On the Trail of the Tasmanian Tiger.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(book by Margaret Mittelbach and Michael Crewdson)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 14, 2005... CARNIVOROUS NIGHTS: On the Trail of the Tasmanian Tiger MARGARET MITTELBACH AND MICHAEL CREWDSON Snakes, venomous insects, and road kill all play parts in this spirited narrative of the authors' hunt for the presumed-extinct thylacine,...

What Einstein Told His Cook 2: The Sequel: Further Adventures in Kitchen Science.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(book by Robert L. Wolke and Marlene Parrish)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 14, 2005... WHAT EINSTEIN TOLD HIS COOK 2: The Sequel: Further Adventures in Kitchen Science ROBERT L. WOLKE AND MARLENE PARRISH In this sequel to What Einstein Told His Cook, Wolke is back to his old tricks, bad puns, and lots of enjoyable...

True North: Peary, Cook, and the Race to the Pole.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(book by Bruce Henderson)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 14, 2005... TRUE NORTH: Peary, Cook, and the Race to the Pole BRUCE HENDERSON Ninety-six years after two men separately laid claim to being the first person to reach the North Pole, supporters of each man are still arguing about who really won...

It's kids' stuff.(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
May 14, 2005... Regarding the therapeutic effects of sunflower-seed oil on infants ("Anoint Them with Oil: Cheap-and-easy treatment cuts infection rates in premature infants," SN: 3/12/05, p. 165), has any research been done as to the health benefits of the...

Part-time police state?(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
May 14, 2005... "Cops with Six Legs: Law and order among insects" (SN: 3/19/05, p. 184) ends with the remark, "overall, 'coercion plays a more important role than kinship in favoring cooperation in insect societies.'" But there's no proof in the article of...

Correction.(Correction Notice)
May 14, 2005... The caption for the picture in "Stone Age Cutups: Deathly rituals emerge at Neandertal site" (SN: 4/16/05, p. 244) should have referred to the partial skull as a "groovy gal," since it has usually been classified as an adult female, says David...

Perfect match: embryonic stem cells carry patients' DNA.(This Week)
May 21, 2005... Made-to-order stem cells that genetically match a patient's own tissues could provide a perfect patch for replacing cells damaged by injury or disease. This approach would avoid immune rejection (SN: 4/2/05, p. 218). By priming embryonic cells...

Baby rescue: cord blood saves infants with rare disease.(This Week)
May 21, 2005... Few events shatter new parents' joy faster than learning that their baby has an incurable illness. One such condition is infantile Krabbe's disease, an inherited disorder of the nervous system. Because of an enzyme deficiency, the short lives...

New mammals: coincidence, shopping yield two species.(This Week)
May 21, 2005... After 21 years without a new kind of monkey being reported in Africa, two research teams working independently in different mountain ranges have described the same novel species. And other researchers, after poking through meat for sale in...

Quantum bull's-eye: particle-mass prediction hits the mark.(This Week)
May 21, 2005... Quarks, the basic constituents of much of matter, are so complicated that scientists have been unable to apply fundamental theory to precisely predict the mass of a quark-containing particle. Until now. In the May 6 Physical Review Letters,...

Heartburn in bed: soda, sleeping pills can spoil sleep.(This Week)
May 21, 2005... For many people, meals come with an unwanted side order: heartburn. But heartburn has a more sinister aspect that can show up well after people leave the table. Acid reflux at night, which can have serious long-term health consequences, often...

Portrait of destruction.(This Week)(earthquake research)(Brief Article)
May 21, 2005... If a magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck near Los Angeles on the San Andreas fault, where would its most destructive vibrations occur? About 20 seconds after such a quake, the strongest ground motions would be in the yellow and green areas of this...

Memories for life: war sparked enduring recollections.(This Week)
May 21, 2005... World War II ended 60 years ago, but memories of that conflagration show surprising staying power. Danes who lived through the Nazi occupation, which began in 1940, and the liberation in 1945 remember information associated with those two...

When fair means superb: young scientists and engineers meet in international competition.(This Week)
May 21, 2005... A record 1,447 high school students from 45 countries shone their brightest in sunny Phoenix last week as they competed for more than $3 million in scholarship money, trips, and other prizes at the 2005 Intel International Science and...

Muddy waters: more sediment is entering rivers, but less makes its way to the sea.
May 21, 2005... About 20 kilometers southwest of New Orleans, one of the U.S. Geological Survey's benchmarks sits atop a concrete column that pokes above the waves about 5 meters from the shore of Couba Island. The small brass disk, one of thousands that the...

Molecular anatomy revealed: CT scans for molecules show the gauzy nature of matter.
May 21, 2005... Whirring softly, the motorized ring of a scanner spins around a brain cancer patient's head in a New York City hospital. An X-ray tube mounted in the doughnut-shaped device emits pulses of high-energy radiation that travel unfelt through the...

Brain's support cells, always on the go.(BIOLOGY)(microglia research )(Brief Article)
May 21, 2005... When the brain is injured or infected, cells called microglia leap into action. A new study indicates that these cells, which researchers previously had thought were quiescent in life's less-stressful moments, are constantly sweeping their...

Spotty neutron stars.(ASTRONOMY)(Brief Article)
May 21, 2005... Spinning up to hundreds of times a second and packing an entire sun's mass into a sphere just slightly wider than the length of Manhattan, a neutron star ranks among the weirdest objects in the universe. Astronomers have for the first time...

Vertebrates, insects share the stress.(BIOLOGY)(Brief Article)
May 21, 2005... As it turns out, the spineless and the brave stand up to adversity the same way. A key protein involved in animals' physiological responses to stress has carried out the same function since before any organism developed a backbone, a study...

Insulin may trigger type 1 diabetes.(BIOMEDICINE)(Brief Article)
May 21, 2005... Researchers have long puzzled over what causes the body to turn against itself in type 1 diabetes, an autoimmune disease that destroys insulin-secreting cells in the pancreas. Now, two studies suggest that insulin, a hormone that regulates...

Coasting to Asia in the Stone Age.(GENETICS)(tracing ancestoral migration)(Brief Article)
May 21, 2005... Two new studies of DNA obtained from Southeast Asian islanders support the unconventional view that, roughly 70,000 years ago, our African ancestors migrated into Asia by traveling along that continent's southern mast. Anthropologists have...

Saturnian moonscape.(PLANETARY SCIENCE)(Saturn's tiny moon Epimetheus)(Brief Article)
May 21, 2005... Scientists have obtained their closest view yet of Saturn's tiny moon Epimetheus. Taken by the Cassini spacecraft, the portrait shows that the moon, whose name in Greek means "afterthought", has an irregular shape and is pocked with soft-edged...

School buses spew pollution into young lungs.(ENVIRONMENT)(Brief Article)
May 21, 2005... Reducing school bus emissions could be a cost-effective way to cut children's exposure to diesel fumes. Researchers reached that conclusion after finding that school bus passengers may inhale heavy doses of the vehicle's pollution. To...

Boxes coated with citronella repel insects.(FOOD AND NUTRITION)(Brief Article)
May 21, 2005... Researchers have used the fragrant grass extract known as citronella oil to make food cartons that discourage insect infestation. The extract is an ingredient of perfumes and also an insect repellent in products already on the market. The oil...

The Nature of Plants: Habitats, Challenges, and Adaptations.(book by John Dawson and Rob Lucas)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 21, 2005... JOHN DAWSON AND ROB LUCAS The Nature of Plants tells dramatic stories of how plants struggle throughout their lives, how they adapt to their often-inhospitable surroundings, and how they change when their surroundings change. The range of...

Big Weather: Chasing Tornadoes in the Heart of America.(book by Mark Svenvold)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 21, 2005... MARK SVENVOLD In Big Weather, Svenvold reveals what happened when he joined the world of storm chasers. This book follows the author and his band of meteorology-obsessed confederates across the Midwest during the height of tornado season....

Descent: The Heroic Discovery of the Abyss.(book by Brad Matsen)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 21, 2005... BRAD MATSEN This is the riveting story of the first truly deep-sea exploration, in a series of 20 dives between 1929 and 1934, William Beebe and Otis Barton rode a diving capsule to 3,028 feet under the Atlantic, about 100 times as far...

Grand Canyon: Solving Earth's Grandest Puzzle.(book by James Lawrence Powell)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 21, 2005... JAMES LAWRENCE POWELL The Grand Canyon isn't just one of the seven natural wonders of the world. It's also a mystery and a learning resource. Early study of the canyon led directly to our current understanding of continental drift and...

Year of the Comets: A Journey from Sadness to the Stars.(book by Jan Deblieu)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
May 21, 2005... JAN DEBLIEU In this poignant and personal story, Deblieu examines both the inner space of the mind and the outer space of the cosmos, in 1996, her husband Jeff, undermined by the illness and death of his mother, began a descent into...

Rascal rabbits.(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
May 21, 2005... Evidence of animals sensing where people are looking and what they're seeing is interesting yet hardly new ("Monkey See, Monkey Think: Grape thefts instigate debate on primate's mind," SN: 3/12/05, p. 163). For years, I have observed that wild...

Just a thought.(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
May 21, 2005... Regarding "Possible Worlds: Imagination gets its due as a real-world thinking tool" (SN: 3/26/05, p. 200), might I suggest that, rather than being a tool of thinking, imagination is just another word for thinking? GREG OTTINGER, SUNNYSIDE,...

Off base?(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
May 21, 2005... I usually tend to downplay worries about research in genetics, but I was quite concerned after reading "Expanding the genetic code" (SN: 4/2/05, p. 222). The researchers surely have plans to keep whatever they create contained. But adding a...

Founding families: New World was settled by small tribe.(This Week)(human mirgration and settlements)
May 28, 2005... A geneticist armed with computer simulations of prehistoric populations says that only about 200 to 300 people crossed the ice age land bridge from Asia to become the founding population of North America. Of that pioneering group, there were...

Last gasp: toxic gas could explain great extinction.(This Week)(ocean hydrogen sulfide caused the ecological disaster)
May 28, 2005... Poisonous gas bubbling up from the deep ocean could have caused the largest extinction of species in Earth's history. A new model describes how hydrogen sulfide gas produced by marine microbes might suddenly have built up in the atmosphere 250...

Roaming giants: did migrating planets shape the solar system?(This Week)(planetary science)
May 28, 2005... "A fairy tale of the early solar system." That's how planetary scientist Hal Levison of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo., whimsically refers to his team's new computer simulation. In it, the four biggest planets start out...

Mapping aroma: smells light up distinct brain parts.(This Week)
May 28, 2005... Researchers decades ago mapped out the brain's sense of touch, with patches of neurons corresponding to body parts, such as a hand, a lip, or the torso. A new study suggests that the sense of smell may have its own brain atlas. The finding adds...

Positive jolt: electroshock therapy may have side benefit.(This Week)
May 28, 2005... People with depression have high concentrations of norepinephrine, a nervous system hormone that signals blood vessels to constrict and ratchets up blood pressure, researchers report. Treating these individuals with electroshock therapy lowers...

Tissue tether: improved conducting plastic could boost nerve-regeneration success.(This Week)
May 28, 2005... Usually touted as materials for cheap, flexible versions of electronic devices such as computer displays and solar panels, conductive polymers could also have roles in emerging medical technologies. In a new investigation, biomedical engineers...