Science News articles from November 2004

Science News archives from November 2004

Titanic close-up: Cassini eyes Saturn's big moon.(This Week)(Brief Article)
November 6, 2004... Using radar to penetrate the thick haze surrounding Saturn's moon Titan, the Cassini spacecraft has found evidence that the moon's surface is coated with hydrocarbons. Dark patches in radar images, including a region the size of Lake Tahoe,...

Nicotine's good side: substance curbs sepsis in mice.(This Week)
November 6, 2004... Small doses of nicotine can halt the progression of the often-fatal condition called sepsis, according to experiments in mice. The finding, coupled with tests of nicotine on cultured human cells, suggests a pathway to more-effective therapies...

Poison source: toxic birds may get chemical from beetle.(This Week)
November 6, 2004... After more than a decade of searching, researchers have found a promising explanation for the defensive chemicals that have been identified in poisonous birds of New Guinea. When the birds eat certain tiny beetles, they may be stocking up on...

Persistent cough: pertussis rises in young adults and infants.(This Week)
November 6, 2004... Nearly a century after a pertussis vaccine became available, the disease appears to be rebounding in adolescents and adults, a variety of studies shows. This trend could explain the increase in mortality among infants, who are infected through...

Electronics detox: leadfree material for ecofriendly gadgetry.(This Week)
November 6, 2004... Scientists in Japan have created a new material that could someday replace toxic components in many electronic devices. With growing concern over the disposal of cell phones, computers, and other gadgets containing hazardous materials, the team...

Smashing the microscope: tiny crashes harnessed for nanoconstruction.(This Week)
November 6, 2004... Nanotechnologists have transformed what used to be a technical flaw in one of their premier atom-moving tools into a benefit that's making nanoscale construction easier. Instead of lamenting how readily the tips of their scanning tunneling...

Wayfaring sleepers: brain area linked to slumber-aided recall.(This Week)
November 6, 2004... Close your eyes, go to sleep, and let your brain shore up memories of the places you've visited recently and the routes you took to get there. That's the implication of the latest study to explore sleep's role in learning and recall. ...

Hide and see: conflicting views of reef-fish colors.
November 6, 2004... A lot of things can be said about a shirt that sports images of coral-reef fish, but "subtly colored" isn't one of them. Oddly enough, that characterization does get used when biologists talk about the reef creatures. Although the fish may...

Metal makeover: recasting metals as glass--for war and more.
November 6, 2004... Some of the brass directing U.S. Navy research funding appears to have gone off the deep end: The Navy has been sinking serious money into the possibility of building future warships out of glass. Since the late 19th century, shipbuilders have...

Irish elk survived after ice age ended.(Paleontology)(Brief Article)
November 6, 2004... New fossil finds indicate that the Irish elk, previously thought to have gone extinct at the end of the last ice age, survived in some spots for several millennia more. Megaloceros giganteus actually was a giant deer that stood more than...

Malaria vaccine shows promise in Mozambique.(Biomedicine)(Brief Article)
November 6, 2004... An experimental vaccine offers some protection against malaria, a new large-scale study finds. Researchers gave injections to 1,605 children of ages 1 to 4, years in rural Mozambique. Half received three doses of a malaria vaccine being...

Brain-based help for adults with dyslexia.(Neuroscience)(Brief Article)
November 6, 2004... Intensive phonics instruction literally gets into the heads of adults with dyslexia, according to a new brain-imaging study. After completing such training, these individuals display modified brain activity that apparently fosters their...

Summer births linked to schizophrenia.(Behavior)(Brief Article)
November 6, 2004... Young people who develop a severe form of schizophrenia are strikingly likely to have been born in the summer, aeeording to data collected in six countries. Symptoms of the condition, sometimes referred to as deficit schizophrenia, include a...

Acne drug affects brain function.(Pharmacology)(Brief Article)
November 6, 2004... The oral medication Accutane, known generically as isotretinoin, is one of the most popular ways to treat severe acne. However, anecdotal complaints linking isotretinoin to depression and suicide have left some doctors and patients concerned...

Drug abuse could be an occupational hazard.(Addiction)(Brief Article)
November 6, 2004... Among physicians most likely to become addicted to prescription drugs, anesthesiologists top the list. Their high rate of drug abuse has traditionally been blamed on easy access to opioids, a type of painkiller including morphine that many...

Oxygen deficit linked to ADHD.(Brain Chemistry)(attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder )(Brief Article)
November 6, 2004... More than 80 percent of babies born prematurely in the United States develop sleep apnea, a condition in which breathing stops periodically during sleep. New research points to a possible link between sleep apnea and attention-deficit...

High-fat diets slim down learning.(Nutrition)(Brief Article)
November 6, 2004... It's well accepted that eating a high-fat diet has numerous detrimental effects on the body from the neck down. Now, preliminary findings in mice suggest that a high-fat diet can also harm the brain. Lih-Chu Chiou and her colleagues at the...

The Architecture and Design of Man and Woman: The Marvel of the Human Body, Revealed.(Book Review)
November 6, 2004... THE ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN OF MAN AND WOMAN: The Marvel of the Human Body, Revealed ALEXANDER TSIARAS Tsiaras uses advanced macroscopic--and microscopic-scanning technology, as well as an artist's touch, to reveal the adult human...

Rhythms of Life: the Biological Clocks that Control the Daily Lives of Every Living Thing.(Book Review)
November 6, 2004... RHYTHMS OF LIFE: The Biological Clocks that Control the Dally Lives 'of Every Living Thing RUSSELL G. FOSTER AND LEON KREITZMAN HOW do birds know when it's time to migrate? Why are we more likely to suffer a heart attack in the morning...

Rising Fire: Volcanoes and Our Inner Lives.(Book Review)
November 6, 2004... RISING FIRE: Volcanoes and Our Inner Lives JOHN CALDERAZZO In this globetrot, Calderazzo takes readers to the most volatile peaks in the world to better understand how volcanoes work and how people live with and study them. In fact, 1...

Potato Radio, Dizzy Dice, and More Wacky, Weird Experiments from the Mad Scientist.(Young Adult Review)
November 6, 2004... POTATO RADIO, DIZZY DICE, AND MORE WACKY, WEIRD EXPERIMENTS FROM THE MAD SCIENTIST JOEY GREEN More than 40 experiments and activities detailed in this book range from the excitement of shooting off a matchbook rocket to the relatively...

Uncommon Fruits for Every Garden.(Book Review)
November 6, 2004... UNCOMMON FRUITS FOR EVERY GARDEN LEE REICH High maintenance apples and grapes take a backseat to lesser known, easier to grow, yet equally delectable varieties of berries, melons, kiwifruits, persimmons, and other fruits. This guide...

Another view.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
November 6, 2004... I suggest that world maps with countries colored by some statistical feature often would be more useful if done on a cartogram that is a compromise between population and size of countries, rather than on a map with a simple Mercator projection...

Take a risk.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
November 6, 2004... Your readers should be aware that the increased fatal cancer risk posed by annual whole-body CT scans, although still quite high, is in fact almost five times lower than that stated in "Scanning Risk: Whole-body CT exams may increase cancer"...

Floored.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
November 6, 2004... It wasn't the news of polluting run off that caught my attention in "Paved Paradise?" (SN: 9/04/04, p. 152), but the startling statistic that the 3 million annual increase in the U.S. population costs $4,80 billion in construction costs alone....

Vaccine stretch: smaller dose packs punch against flu.(This Week)
November 13, 2004... A fraction of the standard dose of flu vaccine grants people immunity to influenza if injected into the skin rather than into the muscle of the upper arm, the usual target. That's the conclusion of two studies to appear in the Nov. 25 New...

Give and take: plant parasites dole out genes while stealing nutrients.(This Week)
November 13, 2004... Parasites are the ultimate moochers, earning a living by stealing hard-earned nutrients from their hosts. Now, a new study in plants suggests that parasites sometimes give something back: foreign genes. Gene swapping between species, a...

Piddly puddle peril: little water pools foil road friction.(This Week)
November 13, 2004... The friction between a car tire and the underlying asphalt drops off dangerously in rainy weather. Now, physicists in Germany and Italy have proposed an explanation for how even slight wetness can cut road-to-rubber friction. Most, if not...

Dino dwarf: island living may have led to ancient downsizing.(This Week)
November 13, 2004... Fossils unearthed in a German quarry hint that members of one species of dinosaur that lived in the region 152 million years ago evolved to be abnormally small--only 6 meters long and weighing a ton or so. That midget stature might have...

First light: faint object may be youngest star detected.(This Week)
November 13, 2004... Peeking into the dusty core of a dark cloud seemingly devoid of stars, astronomers have found a faintly glowing body that could be the earliest glimmerings ever recorded from a newborn star. If the object, spied by the infrared eye of the...

Choked up: how dead zones affect fish reproduction.(This Week)
November 13, 2004... Several U.S. research teams report reproductive problems in Gulf Coast fish that periodically encounter oxygen at concentrations as low as those in so-called dead zones (SN: 6/5/04, p. 360). Two teams have also turned up gene changes that may...

Synchronized thinking: brain activity linked to schizophrenia, skillful meditation.(This Week)
November 13, 2004... The collective activity of huge assemblies of brain cells, as reflected in their rhythmic electrical discharges, contributes to the derailed perceptions and thoughts of schizophrenia as well as to the heightened mental states achieved by...

Assault on autism: scientists target drugs and other environmental agents that may play a role.
November 13, 2004... Beth Crowell remembers the day in 1989 when her triplets, Casey, Andrew, and Erin, were about 15 months old. Crowell put Erin down on the floor to crawl. "But she just sat there, fixated on the red shag carpeting," says the Housatonic, Mass.,...

Frozen assets: agriculture has started banking animal seed.
November 13, 2004... Ninety percent of the nation's dairy cows--some 8.2 million animals--belong to a single breed: Holstein. Owing to the dairy industry's extensive reliance on artificial insemination using semen from only the choicest bulls, this Holstein...

Light step toward quantum networks.(Physics)(Brief Article)
November 13, 2004... Researchers are striving to use quantum physics to store, manipulate, and transmit data to someday create extraordinarily powerful and secure computer networks. Now, physicists in Atlanta have demonstrated the quantum version of one of the most...

Riddles on Titan.(Astronomy)(Brief Article)
November 13, 2004... Two puzzles have emerged from the Cassini spacecraft's first close flyby of Saturn's hydrocarbon-shrouded moon Titan (SN: 11/06/04, p. 291). Radar images from the Oct. 26 passage, which recorded just 1 percent of the moon's surface, show no...

Heavy traffic may trigger heart attacks.(Biomedicine)(Brief Article)
November 13, 2004... People at risk of heart attacks should steer clear of traffic, a new study suggests. Researchers in Germany have found that exposure to traffic can dramatically increase a person's risk of having a heart attack soon afterward. The...

Can phthalates subtly alter boys?(Environment)
November 13, 2004... To identify a young rodent's gender without doing an elaborate test, biologists measure the distance from the animal's anus to its genital opening. This anogenital distance is slightly, but reliably, longer in males than in females--unless...

Uranium, the newest 'hormone'.(Biomedicine)
November 13, 2004... The incidence of several cancers is especially high on the Four Corners Navajo Reservation, which straddles the Arizona-New Mexico border. Because the region hosts more than 2,000 abandoned uranium mines, many of which release dust into the air...

DDT linked to miscarriages.(Endocrinology)(Brief Article)
November 13, 2004... Although production and use of DDT have been banned throughout most of the world for decades, people continue to carry the pesticide's residues in their bodies. That's a concern because animal studies have shown that DDT can mimic the action of...

The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
November 13, 2004... RICHARD DAWKINS Perhaps the preeminent evolutionary biologist of our time presents his magnum opus here--a comprehensive, 4-billion-year tour of life on Earth. Based loosely on Canterbury Tales, Dawkins' book introduces 40 of our...

Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs: A Practical Guide.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
November 13, 2004... JANICE KAMRIN For people who seek not only to learn about hieroglyphs but also to read them, this book offers a step-by-step approach. Kamrin, an Egyptologist, begins by introducing the Egyptian alphabet and then presents signs, words,...

Under Antarctic Ice: The Photographs of Norbert Wu.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
November 13, 2004... JIM MASTRO AND NORBERT WU The images in this glorious book document some of the most-remote locations on Earth--underneath the ice shelves around Antarctica. Diving in these venues requires some 120 pounds of equipment and confidence that...

Symmetry: And the Beautiful Universe.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
November 13, 2004... LEON M. LEDERMAN AND CHRISTOPHER T. HILL The idea of symmetry pervades the arts as well as the sciences. A flower's petals, a radiating seashell, a snowflake, a drumbeat, and a melody all exhibit symmetry. On a much larger scale, physicists...

Weighing The Soul: Scientific Discovery from the Brilliant to the Bizarre.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
November 13, 2004... LEN FISHER Great scientific discoveries often stem from ideas that seem downright preposterous when they're introduced. Fisher, author of HOW to Dunk a Doughnut and winner of an Ig Nobel Prize for his work on the physics of cookie dunking,...

The direct approach.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
November 13, 2004... "An Exploitable Mutation: Defect might make some lung cancers treatable" (SN: 9/11/04, p. 164) may have missed a "magic bullet" that would be effective against many forms of cancer. The researchers concentrate on a drug that blocks a mutated...

Near cited.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
November 13, 2004... There is an error in "A really cool map" (SN: 9/11/04, p. 166). These Cassini results are based on thermal-infrared, not near-infrared data. The measurements were taken by the Composite Infrared Spectrometer and covered the spectral range from...

Seed of a dispute.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
November 13, 2004... I am wondering why the subject of genetically modified crops didn't enter the discussion of diminishing plant diversity in "The Ultimate Crop Insurance" (SN: 9/11/04, p. 170). When genes from bacteria, insects, and other totally unrelated...

Profiles in melancholy, resilience: abused kids react to genetics, adult support.(This Week)
November 20, 2004... Parental neglect and abuse leave many children feeling hopeless and despondent. Yet some youngsters weather such maltreatment remarkably well. In a new study, scientists offer a rare peek at how genetics and interactions with adults collaborate...

Busy beads: magnetic dust takes droplets for a ride.(This Week)
November 20, 2004... While many chemists are working to reduce the elements of a chemistry lab to a single chip replete with miniature pumps, channels, and valves, others are striving for a simpler route to miniaturization. Rather than shuttling liquids through...

Lighthearted transistor: electronic workhorse moonlights as laser.(This Week)
November 20, 2004... Transistors have long served as the building blocks of microelectronics. More recently, microchip lasers have been emerging as cornerstones of light-based circuitry, or photonics. Now, engineers have melded the two types of components into one...

Unhealthy change: diversity in a bacterial colony can prolong infections.(This Week)
November 20, 2004... Researchers have long known that diversification strengthens large groups, from the stocks in a winning portfolio to the wildflowers in a field. New findings suggest that the same idea applies to bacterial communities and may explain why some...

Problems for preemies: early birth is linked to insulin overproduction.(This Week)
November 20, 2004... Infants born prematurely are more likely than full-term, normal-weight babies to later develop insulin resistance, a warning sign of diabetes, a new study finds. A person with insulin resistance has cells that respond inefficiently to...

Lingering loss: in 2-year diet trial, new pill keeps off weight.(This Week)
November 20, 2004... An experimental diet drug looks like a long-distance success. New data indicate that obese adults who lose weight during a year of taking rimonabant and dieting keep the weight off during the following year, if they continue the regimen. ...

Belt tightening: icy orbs are surprisingly small.(This Week)
November 20, 2004... Over the past few years, astronomers have reported large objects lurking in the Kuiper belt, a distant region of the solar system that seems to be a reservoir for comets. Some of the objects seemed to be half the size of Pluto. But observations...

A titan of a mission: parachuting through smog to Saturn's moon.(Cover Story)
November 20, 2004... On Jan. 14, a flying saucer will parachute through the thick orange haze of a distant moon's atmosphere. Descending through the hydrocarbon smog, the probe could crash into an icy mountain, plop in a pool of organic goo, or dive into a methane...

One-celled socialites: bacteria mix and mingle with microscopic fervor.
November 20, 2004... Welcome to a vibrant social scene that has operated largely in secret until the past few years. Its participants don't seem to mind going unnoticed. They congregate in immense numbers to fend off enemies and the brute forces of nature, to...

A vaccine for cervical cancer.(Biomedicine)(Brief Article)
November 20, 2004... In a preliminary study, a vaccine against a virus that can cause cancer has proved 94 percent effective in women. The success sets the stage for an enhanced version of the vaccine and the massive trial needed for government approval of the...

Staph receptor as drug target.(Infectious Disease)(Brief Article)
November 20, 2004... A molecule that sits on the surface of Staphylococcus aureus, an infectious microbe that's resistant to many antibiotics, might offer a weak spot in the bacterium's defenses, early research suggests. Certain peptides secreted by the bacteria...

The big fish that went away ...(Ancient Times)(Brief Article)
November 20, 2004... Deep-sea anglers, sit back in your deck chairs, close your eyes, and imagine fighting to land one of the monstrous fish that cruised the seas off South Carolina about 26 million years ago. Fossils found near Charleston suggest that adult...

... and the big bird that didn't.(Ice-Age Life)
November 20, 2004... Its varied diet may have permitted the California condor, one of today's largest and rarest birds, to survive the mass extinctions at the end of the last ice age, according to a new study. Many species of large land mammals died off about...

Plenty of dinosaurs yet to be found.(Paleobiology)(Brief Article)
November 20, 2004... The dramatic surge in dinosaur discoveries that paleontologists have been enjoying in recent years won't soon abate, a new analysis suggests. As of 1990, when the first edition of a comprehensive reference book entitled The Dinosauria...

The Answer to Cancer.(Books: a selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Book Review)
November 20, 2004... THE ANSWER TO CANCER CAROLYN D. RUNOWICZ AND SHELDON H, CHERRY WITH DIANNE PARTIE LANGE Because cancer is the cause of death for more people between the ages of 45 and 64 than anything else, there's an unprecedented effort to detect and...

How Dogs Think: Understanding the Canine Mind.(Books: a selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Book Review)
November 20, 2004... HOW DOGS THINK: Understanding the Canine Mind STANLEY COREN Coren is a professor of human psychology but has long been recognized as a leader in the effort to determine how animals, specifically dogs, think and relate to each other and to...

The Rarest of the Rare: Stories behind the Treasures at the Harvard Museum of Natural History.(Books: a selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Book Review)
November 20, 2004... THE RAREST OF THE RARE: Stories behind the Treasures at the Harvard Museum of Natural History NANCY PICK, PHOTOGRAPHS BY MARK SLOAN Most people are probably more familiar with the natural history collections in museums in Washington, D.C.,...

The Real Mars: Spirit, Opportunity, Mars Express, and the Quest to Explore the Red Planet.(Books: a selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Book Review)
November 20, 2004... THE REAL MARS: Spirit, Opportunity, Mars Express, and the Quest to Explore the Red Planet MICHAEL HANLON A small armada of robotic spacecraft has photographed, prodded, poked, and drilled into the surface of Mars during the past year. Data...

When Earth got gas.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
November 20, 2004... Considering the controversy that Thomas Gold engendered when he first postulated abiogenie origins of earthly hydrocarbons, it's odd you didn't mention his name, in "Deep Squeeze: Experiments point to methane in Earth's mantle" (SN: 9/25/04, p....

Eyes for art.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
November 20, 2004... Far from being a pathology, the eye cast noted in "Rembrandt's eye saw no depth" (SN: 9/25/04, p. 205) is exactly what one would expect for a right-eye-dominant artist. A dominant eye would see itself directly in a mirror but would observe the...

Correction.(Letters)(Correction Notice)
November 20, 2004... Correction "Fat Fuels PCB Damage: Diet influences toxic effects leading to heart disease" (SN: 10/16/04, p. 245) should have placed Bernhard Hennig and his colleagues at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, not Louisville.

Umbilical bounty: cord blood shows value against leukemia.(This Week)
November 27, 2004... In two studies comparing treatments for adults with leukemia, scientists find that a transplant of umbilical cord blood offers a viable option for people who don't have a well-matched bone marrow donor. Leukemia occurs when marrow...

Transparent transistor: see-through component for flexible displays.(This Week)
November 27, 2004... Imagine a car windshield that suddenly lights up to reveal a map of the city and directions to your next destination. Or picture a computer display that you can not only see through but also roll into a tube and slip into your coat pocket....

Con artist: scanning program can discern true art.(This Week)
November 27, 2004... Until now, discerning an artist's style has been in the eye of the beholder. However, a new mathematical tool distills style into an array of statistics as a potential means to spot forgeries. In a recent study, the technique distinguished...

Neural feel for seeing: emotion may mold early visual activity in brain.(This Week)
November 27, 2004... We don't just react emotionally to what we see. What we see is shaped by what we feel, a new study suggests. When looking at faces displaying fearful expressions, people with intact brains or with brain damage that spares the amygdala, an...

Extrasolar planet news: superplanet or brown dwarf?(This Week)
November 27, 2004... New observations of an oddball planetary system 150 light-years from Earth may force astronomers to rethink the textbook definition of a planet and the accepted idea about how such a body forms. The observations suggest that either some...

Seminal discovery: promiscuous females speed sperm evolution.(This Week)
November 27, 2004... New evidence suggests that Mother Nature has her own means of handling cheating wives. Researchers have found that a gene responsible for semen viscosity has evolved more rapidly in primate species with promiscuous females than in monogamous...

Damp sandcastles.(This Week)(Brief Article)
November 27, 2004... China's Badain Jaran desert, which covers more than 40,000 square kilometers, is home to some of the world's tallest stationary dunes, seen here from the International Space Station. They can stand 500 meters tall and cast immense shadows. What...

Color at night: geckos can distinguish hues by dim moonlight.(This Week)
November 27, 2004... Of all the vertebrates, a gecko has just become the first to ace behavioral tests for seeing color in very low illumination. People, for example, go color-blind in light equivalent to dim moonlight, but helmet geckos, Tarentola chazaliae,...

Asthma counterattack: symptoms decline when families fight allergens at home.
November 27, 2004... Debris from cockroaches and dust mites, fungus spores, pet dander, noxious chemicals.... These are a few of the things that can make the typical home a dangerous place for people with asthma. Molecules from these agents can trigger unnecessary...

Flightless feathered friends: new tales of penguin evolution, past and present.(Cover Story)
November 27, 2004... If a bird's success is measured by how well it flies, then penguins rank low. Their aerial excursions are limited to hopping from one rock to another or, at best, punctuating their high-speed swims with short, arcing leaps from the ocean's...

Cleaning up anthrax.(Chemistry)(Brief Article)
November 27, 2004... Chemists have developed a new technology that could quickly and inexpensively destroy anthrax spores in terrorist-contaminated buildings and on troops in the field. Oxidizing agents, such as peroxides, can destroy cells, including...

Spinning earth drags space.(Physics)(Brief Article)
November 27, 2004... Our rotating planet's tug on space-time, known as frame dragging, takes place almost exactly as specified by relativity theory, report Ignazio Ciufolini of the University of Lecce in Italy and Erricos C. Pavlis of the University of Maryland in...

Lead's a moving target at rifle ranges.(Geochemistry)
November 27, 2004... The lead used in bullets and shotgun pellets can be a threat to the environment near rifle ranges, but many of its hazards are manageable, a new study suggests. During the 20th century, U.S. hunters and target shooters fired ammunition...

Dead zones may record river floods.(Earth Science)
November 27, 2004... The remains of sediment-dwelling microorganisms beneath periodically oxygen-depleted ocean waters could enable scientists to determine when nearby rivers flooded for extended periods. Huge areas of anoxic water occur offshore near the...

Pompeii's burial not its first disaster.(Archaeology)(Brief Article)
November 27, 2004... Recent excavations reveal that the ancient city of Pompeii, famed for its burial by an eruption of Italy's Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79, suffered through several devastating landslides in the centuries preceding its volcanic demise. About...