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Science News articles from May 2007
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Science News archives from May 2007
Less is more (bone): yearly osteoporosis drug reduces fractures.(This Week)
May 5, 2007
Talk to the hand: language might have evolved from gestures.(This Week)
May 5, 2007
Quantum loophole: some quirks of physics can be good for science.(This Week)
May 5, 2007
Automatic networking: brain systems charge up in unconscious monkeys.(This Week)
May 5, 2007
Liquid center: Mercury has a molten core, radar reveals.(This Week)
May 5, 2007
More than bit players: snippets of RNA might sway pancreatic cancer.(This Week)
May 5, 2007
Not-so-clear alternative: in its air-quality effects, ethanol fuel is similar to gasoline.(This Week)
May 5, 2007
Peru's sunny view: solar observatory dates back 2,300 years.(Cover story)
May 5, 2007
Sensor sensibility: the mathematics of shapes is illuminating the structure of wireless sensor networks.
May 5, 2007... Imagine a future in which billions of tiny computers are embedded into buildings, streets, fields, or even our bodies. These devices might monitor weather, traffic, crop conditions, the progression of diseases, or a host of other variables. The...
Lost in transportation.(COMPUTERS)(Dominik Schultes algorithm to save from traffic jam)(Brief article)
May 5, 2007
Bugged wines.(AGRICULTURE)(Harmonic axyridis)(Brief article)
May 5, 2007
Kin play limited role in chimp cooperation.(ANTHROPOLOGY)(Brief article)
May 5, 2007
Lake Superior is warming faster than its local climate.(EARTH SCIENCE)(Brief article)
May 5, 2007
Spider blood fluoresces.(ZOOLOGY)
May 5, 2007
A solar forecast.(PLANETARY SCIENCE)(National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)(Brief article)
May 5, 2007
Mere kats?(Letter to the editor)
May 5, 2007
Just a dram.(Letter to the editor)
May 5, 2007
Back to the future.(Letter to the editor)
May 5, 2007
The worst part.(Letter to the editor)
May 5, 2007
But are they sopranos?(Letter to the editor)
May 5, 2007
Correction.(LETTERS)(Correction notice)
May 5, 2007
Risk factor: throat cancer linked to virus spread by sex.(This Week)(Report)
May 12, 2007... Cancer of the throat and tonsils can arise from infection with a sexually transmitted virus, a new study suggests.
Researchers report that the human papillomavirus (HPV) is much more likely to turn up in the throat cells of people with a...
No place like om: meditation training puts oomph into attention.(This Week)
May 12, 2007... Intensive meditation training does more than foster inner peace and relaxation. Mental practice of this type boosts control over attention and expands a person's ability to notice rapidly presented items, at least during a laboratory test.
...
Degrees of quantumness: shades of gray in particle-wave duality.(This Week)
May 12, 2007... Is light made of particles or waves? The answer, according to quantum physics, is both. Depending on the situation, particles of light--and particles of matter too--sometimes contradict themselves and act like waves. But between these two...
Cells' root: adult stem cells have a master gene.(This Week)(Report)
May 12, 2007... A person's body constantly sheds dead skin cells, and new cells well up to take their places. Stem cells in the skin generate this continuous stream of biological units. Now, researchers have identified a master gene that enables these stem...
Stellar spectacular: brightest supernova.(This Week)(Report)
May 12, 2007... Astronomers this week described the brightest stellar explosion ever recorded. In just 2 months, the eruption--the catastrophic death of what was probably a freakishly massive star--has thrown out as much radiation as the sun will during its...
Invisible trail: analyzing the vortices in the wake of a bat.(This Week)
May 12, 2007... Experiments that reveal the swirling air around a flying bat indicate that those mammals generate lift and thrust with their wings much differently than birds do.
At first glance, birds and bats seem to move through the air in similar...
Extreme encyclopedia: every living thing will get its own page.(This Week)
May 12, 2007... An international team of weighty institutions this week announced that it's developing the weightiest encyclopedia of biology yet. The free, multilanguage, Web-based guide will cover the 1.8 million living species known, plus new discoveries,...
The hunt for antihelium: finding a single heavy antimatter nucleus could revolutionize cosmology.
May 12, 2007... When summer comes to Antarctica this December, a group of physicists there will launch an enormous balloon carrying a scientific instrument through Earth's atmosphere to the edge of space. If all goes well, the detector will count cosmic rays...
Egg shell game: chicks' sex isn't just a matter of chance.
May 12, 2007... In 1939, a man walking his dog in Brooklyn noticed Hollywood finches for sale in a store. The reddish-brownish seed eaters are native to the dry Southwest, including Southern California. A 1918 law was supposed to have protected such North...
Alzheimer's marker yields blood test.(Biochemistry)(Brief article)
May 12, 2007... Despite memory-test and brain-imaging advances in recent years, diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease remains a challenge. Usually, only the presence of clumps of the protein amyloid-beta in the brain at autopsy confirms that a person's dementia was...
Cancer patients aided by yoga.(Immunology)(Report)
May 12, 2007... A pilot study in breast cancer patients suggests that Iyengar yoga--stretching and relaxing aided by straps, wooden blocks, and other props--can improve patients' feelings of well-being and even reduce the inflammation triggered by therapy.
...
This trick boosts cancer's spread.(Biomedicine)
May 12, 2007... A molecule on the surface of most cells keeps them tightly stitched together into well-organized tissues. Because such order prevents the cells from growing excessively or leaving the tissue, spreading cancer cells turn off the production of...
A smart pill for seniors?(Nutrition)(Report)(Brief article)
May 12, 2007... Many people approaching retirement age find that memories fade and quick-wittedness flags. Scientists at the University of Massachusetts in Lowell have formulated what they call a "smart pill" to optimize brain health in such people. In pilot...
Lethal injection is inhumane, say researchers.(Science and Society)(Report)(Brief article)
May 12, 2007... Prisoners killed by lethal injection may be conscious and may experience excruciating pain and burning sensations while they asphyxiate, according to a new report.
"The design of the lethal-drug scheme itself is flawed," say Leonidas...
Sex--perhaps a good idea after all.(Brief article)
May 12, 2007... A family of beetle mites may be the first animal lineage to have abandoned sexual reproduction and then reevolved it.
That's the conclusion of a study of the mites' evolutionary history as determined by DNA analysis, says Roy Norton of the...
Cell of Cells: The Global Race to Capture and Control the Stem Cell.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
May 12, 2007... CELL OF CELLS: The Global Race to Capture and Control the Stem Cell CYNTHIA FOX
Despite a ban on the use of U.S.-government funds for creating and experimenting on new lines of human embryonic stem cells, progress is occurring in this...
What Is Your Dangerous Idea? Today's Leading Thinkers on the Unthinkable.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
May 12, 2007... WHAT IS YOUR DANGEROUS IDEA? Today's Leading Thinkers on the Unthinkable JOHN BROCKMAN, ED.
Modern science includes many concepts that were once considered socially or morally unacceptable, or even dangerous. The ideas that human beings...
Soaring With Fidel: An Osprey Odyssey from Cape Cod to Cuba and Beyond.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
May 12, 2007... SOARING WITH FIDEL: An Osprey Odyssey from Cape Cod to Cuba and Beyond DAVID GESSNER
With limited resources but boundless enthusiasm, Gessner follows osprey during their yearly migration cycle from Cape Cod, down the East Coast, over Cuba,...
Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
May 12, 2007... DIRT: The Erosion of Civilizations DAVID R. MONTGOMERY
Dirt supports more than the objects that sit atop it. It supports civilizations, Montgomery points out. People obviously rely on dirt for agriculture and therefore sustenance. But...
Why Beauty Is Truth: A History of Symmetry.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
May 12, 2007... WHY BEAUTY IS TRUTH: A History of Symmetry IAN STEWART
The concept of symmetry has been pondered for thousands of years. Its elegance and beauty have their roots in mathematics, writes Stewart, a professor of mathematics at the University...
Saw right through it.(Letter to the editor)
May 12, 2007... E. Fred Schubert and his colleagues are to be congratulated for developing an improved antireflective coating ("The New Black: A nanoscale coating reflects almost no light," SN: 3/3/07, p. 132). But the coating would not make a lens "absorb"...
Like dog years?(Letter to the editor)
May 12, 2007... You report on new age dates for Clovis sites ("New age for ancient Americans," SN: 3/3/07, p. 141). It may be of interest to your readers that the dates given (11,050 to 10,900 years ago) are in "radiocarbon years" and are not in real or...
Poacher prevention.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)(Brief article)
May 12, 2007... To discourage poaching, authorities in Zambia should subdue every elephant they can find, sedate it, harvest the ivory themselves, and sell it for revenue for animal-protection programs ("DNA pinpoints poached ivory tusks," SN: 3/10/07, p....
A lot of living to do.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
May 12, 2007... Regarding "Living Long on Less? Mouse and human cells respond to slim diets" (SN: 3/10/07, p. 147), what were the ages of the people in the study?
HENRY DIETER WEINSCHEL,
LAS CRUCES, N.M.
The participants, whose muscle cells...
X-ray kin: radiation risk is hereditary.(This Week)
May 19, 2007... Susceptibility to radiation-induced tumors runs in families, according to an unusual study.
In the 1950s, Jewish immigrants from North Africa and elsewhere streamed into the new country of Israel. Many arriving children carried a fungal...
Biological hot spots: ocean eddies may not always lock away carbon.(This Week)
May 19, 2007... Large blooms of plankton often appear in ocean eddies, temporary swirls that sometimes bring cool, nutrient-rich water to the surface. When those organisms die, the carbon they contain has to go somewhere, but new studies suggest that very...
Low life: cold, polar ocean looks surprisingly rich.(This Week)
May 19, 2007... The first survey of life in deep waters around Antarctica has turned up hundreds of new species and a lot more variety than explorers had expected.
A team of scientists from eight countries sampled bottom dwellers during three cruises in...
Water world: extrasolar planet is loaded with hot ice.(This Week)
May 19, 2007... Astronomers have found a Neptune-size planet outside the solar system that's composed mainly of water--albeit in solid form. With a torrid surface temperature of 600 kelvins, the planet can't support life. But its existence bodes well for...
Fly moves: insects buzz about in organized abandon.(This Week)
May 19, 2007... Flies aren't deep thinkers. Yet these humble creatures display a penchant for spontaneous behavior that represents an evolutionary building block of voluntary choice, also known as free will, a controversial new study suggests.
By...
Another layer of complexity: short lengths of RNA could provide new form of genetic control.(This Week)
May 19, 2007... Most of the human genome is so-called junk DNA, which contains no code for proteins and was long thought to be useless. Now, researchers have found that a relatively large portion of this genetic material could help regulate the activity of...
Cleaning treasures: safer solvents for restoring frescoes.(This Week)
May 19, 2007... By suspending small amounts of solvents in nanoseale droplets, chemists have found an environmentally safer method of cleaning centuries-old frescoes and saving them from the unintended consequences of previous restorations.
The...
Spinning into control: high-tech reincarnations of an ancient way of storing energy.
May 19, 2007... Departing trains at a rail station could someday get their initial oomph for free, each time saving the equivalent of several days' worth of electricity usage by an average U.S. household. The trains would rely on a concept already used in...
Our microbes, ourselves: how bacterial communities in the body influence human health.
May 19, 2007... In the womb, a fetus enjoys the protection of a sterile environment. Only when the mother's amniotic sac ruptures before delivery does her baby face microbes for the first time. As he's squeezed through the birth canal, he picks up millions of...
Tiny pool protects flower buds.(BIOLOGY)(Brief article)
May 19, 2007... Rare flower structures--tiny cups that keep flower buds submerged in their own water baths--can protect the blooms from marauding moths, say researchers.
One species with these cups, Chrysothemis friedrichsthaliana, grows along riverbanks...
Broadband vision.(Physics)(human eye)(Report)(Brief article)
May 19, 2007... Evolution put a notorious quirk in the vertebrate eye, placingthelight-sensing cells on the back of the retina instead of the front. But evolution also seems to have found a high-tech work-around for this apparent mistake. Scientists now say...
Therapeutic sorghum?(Biomedicine)(Report)(Brief article)
May 19, 2007... In terms of production, sorghum is one of the nation's top grains. Most of it now goes to feed livestock. A team of university scientists says that's a mistake because sorghum bran can fight inflammation almost as well as a prescription drug...
Embryos, please.(Biomedicine)(donations)(Brief article)
May 19, 2007... Almost half of Spanish couples recently asked to donate their excess embryos to stem cell research did so.
The response of 97 couples who had undergone in vitro fertilization treatment at two Spanish clinics contrasts sharply to the...
Emissions tied to global warming are on the rise.(Environment)(Brief article)
May 19, 2007... The United States emitted nearly 1 percent more greenhouse gases in 2005 than it did in 2004, according to an emissions inventory from the Environmental Protection Agency. From 1990 to 2005, the country's greenhouse-gas emissions rose 16.3...
Slimming on oolong.(Food & Nutrition)(Report)(Brief article)
May 19, 2007... Without skimping on portions, rats eating diets including oolong tea gain less weight than those dining teafree, a new study finds. The tea apparently impairs the body's ability to absorb fat.
The finding supports a weight-control...
Alzheimer's clues from thin brains.(Neuroscience)(Report)(Brief article)
May 19, 2007... Some kids on the cusp of adolescence display a genetically influenced brain trait that may raise their likelihood of developing Alzheimer's disease later in life. The entorhinal cortex, a neural area targeted by this devastating condition, is...
Face it: termites are roaches.(Zoology)(Report)(Brief article)
May 19, 2007... Termites are just cockroaches with a fancy social life, according to the biggest DNA study yet of the two groups.
The idea's been "simmering" says Paul Eggleton of the Natural History Museum in London. To perform a definitive test, he and...
Sippewissett, Or, Life on a Salt Marsh.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
May 19, 2007... SIPPEWISSETT, OR, LIFE ON A SALT MARSH TIM TRAVER
The Sippewissett Marsh on Cape Cod represents a microcosm of the planet, environmentalist Traver asserts. The author recounts personal memories as well as environmental-research findings....
Einstein: His Life and Universe.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
May 19, 2007... EINSTEIN: His Life and Universe WALTER ISAACSON
In this first full biography since the release of a hoard of Albert Einstein's letters, Isaacson, the chief executive officer of the non-profit Aspen Institute, chronicles the life of the past...
The Songs of Insects.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
May 19, 2007... THE SONGS OF INSECTS LANG ELLIOTT AND WIL HERSHBERGER
Late summer is characterized by symphonies of crickets, katydids, and cicadas, a cacophony that can go on day and night. This book profiles the songs of 77 insects in the eastern and...
The Fragile Edge: Diving and Other Adventures in the South Pacificv.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
May 19, 2007... THE FRAGILE EDGE: Diving and Other Adventures in the South Pacific JULIA WHITTY
Thousands of miles from continental landmasses, in the southern Pacific Ocean, lies the Rangiroa atoll. Whitty, a diver and author, travels to this remote...
Galileo's Gout: Science in an Age of Endarkenment.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
May 19, 2007... GALILEO'S GOUT: Science in an Age of Endarkenment GERALD WEISSMANN
Weissmann laments the science illiteracy of many U.S. citizens: One in five believes that the sun revolves around the Earth. He calls the trend the "endarkenment," the...
Merry go round.(Letter to the editor)
May 19, 2007... When considering a spin rate of 1,122 revolutions per second, has anyone determined the diameter of the neutron star XTE J1739-285 ("Dance of the dead," SN: 3/17/07,p. 173)? If, for example, it were the same diameter as Earth, it would be...
Captcha gotcha.(Letter to the editor)
May 19, 2007... It is ironic that the article "Games Theory" (SN: 3/17/07, p. 170) describes a captcha [completely automated Turing test to tell computers and humans apart] and then goes on to demonstrate how to defeat it. An automated program that is supposed...
Plant with caution.(Letter to the editor)
May 19, 2007... I find it absolutely incredible that anyone is seriously contemplating an escalation of "natural" herbicides ("Herbal Herbicides" SN: 3,/17/07, p. 167). As there is no "additive" sprayed on the crop, no testing is likely in animal or human...
Violent past: young sun withstood a supernova blast.(This Week)
May 26, 2007... A big bully pummeled our sun in its infancy, fatefully altering the composition and evolution of the solar system, a new study suggests. The heavy, in this case, was a nearby, massive star. First, the massive star pounded the young sun with...
Virgin birth: shark has daughter without a dad.(This Week)
May 26, 2007... Geneticists have confirmed a case of birth without mating in a bonnethead shark, one of the smaller hammerhead species. That makes sharks the fifth major vertebrate lineage with documented virgin births.
The mother bonnethead (Sphyrna...
Circadian fix: Viagra may lessen effects of jet lag.(This Week)
May 26, 2007... The leading drug prescribed for male impotence can counteract the lethargy caused by a disruption in the sleep cycle, a study in rodents suggests. Sildenafil, commonly known as Viagra, helps hamsters rebound from a 6-hour clock change such as a...
Fish free fall: hormone leads to population decline.(This Week)
May 26, 2007... Trace amounts of natural and synthetic estrogens released into the environment by wastewater-treatment plants are known to cause reproductive abnormalities in fish. Researchers have now found an even more dramatic consequence of exposure to the...
Dark power: pigment seems to put radiation to good use.(This Week)
May 26, 2007... Call them the Hulk bugs. Just as they do for the comic book hero, gamma rays seem to make certain microscopic fungi stronger. Researchers have found hints that melanin--the same pigment that's the natural ultraviolet filter in people's...
Face talk: babies see their way to language insights.(This Week )
May 26, 2007... To a 4-to-6-month-old baby, a talking face that can be seen but not heard still speaks volumes. Infants in that age range can distinguish between two languages solely by looking at a speaker's face, without hearing a sound, a new study...
Hot competition: students display winning projects.(This Week)(Intel International Science and Engineering Fair)
May 26, 2007... In Albuquerque, visitors must decide between red and green chilies, but last week, a different kind of spice heated up the town. At the 2007 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF), more than 1,500 high school students from 51...
Reaching for rays: scientists work toward a solar-based energy system.
May 26, 2007... In the bright blue skies that he enjoys from his academic perch in southern California, Nathan S. Lewis sees the answer to the world's energy needs. "The sun is the champion of all energy sources," says Lewis, a chemist at the California...
Dangerous history: the genetic secrets of a savvy killer.
May 26, 2007... Throughout recorded time, tuberculosis has wrought death among the people infected and frustration among those trying to tame it. As recently as the 1950s, prescribed treatment included little more than rest, sunlight, and fresh air. Today,...