Science News articles from October 2003

Science News archives from October 2003

Size of range in wild may predict risk in zoo.(Carnivores in Captivity)
October 4, 2003... The extent of a species' home range can be used to forecast how well members of the species will adapt to captivity, according to a controversial new survey of troubled behavior in zoo animals. "As far as I know, we're the first to test...

Tortoises chronicle eruption in their genes.(Volcanic Legacy)
October 4, 2003... An ancient volcanic eruption in the Galapagos Islands bequeathed diminished genetic diversity to one group of the archipelago's famed giant tortoises, a new analysis suggests. Five subspecies of the Galapagos tortoise live on the island of...

DNA data point to late New World entry.(Y Trail of the First Americans)
October 4, 2003... People first set foot in the Americas no earlier than about 18,000 years ago, according to an analysis of a newly identified gene variant on the Y chromosome. This evidence supports the longstanding archaeological theory that New World...

Diabetes risk reflects when cereals enter infant diet.(Timing That First Spoonful)
October 4, 2003... Precisely when babies first eat cereals may affect their odds of subsequently developing diabetes. Two studies suggest that giving cereals to diabetes-susceptible infants within 3 months of birth greatly enhances their risk for type 1 diabetes....

Lewis and Clark diaries provide directional clue.(North vs. Northwest)
October 4, 2003... When Meriwether Lewis and William Clark set off to explore the Louisiana Territory in 1804, President Thomas Jefferson directed them to note the location of interesting points along the way. The explorers diligently calculated latitude and...

Strong evidence of lakes on Titan.(News Splash)
October 4, 2003... Using Earth-based radar to penetrate the thick atmosphere of Saturn's moon Titan, planetary scientists have confirmed that the smog-shrouded moon is unique among known residents of the solar system. The new radar observations suggest more...

Coated inserts keep vessels unclogged.(Coronary Fix)
October 4, 2003... Doctors started opening blocked coronary art/des with balloon-tipped catheters in the 1970s, but repeat narrowing of those vessels sent many patients back to the hospital. In the 1980s, scientists devised mesh cylinders called stents that prop...

On thinning ice: are the world's glaciers in mortal danger?
October 4, 2003... Earth's average temperature has risen by about two-thirds of a Celsius degree in the past century. That doesn't sound like much, but glaciers are feeling the heat. Although some of these ice rivers seem to be holding their own, surveys suggest...

Hot crystal: lightbulbs and a radiation law may never be the same.
October 4, 2003... There's a gleam in electrical engineer Shawn Yu Lin's eyes these days. It's a reflection of yellowish light given off by a brightly glowing metallic flake inside a vacuum chamber. Heated to incandescence by an electric current, the metal sliver...

Bean plants punish microbial partners.(Botany)
October 4, 2003... Plants with nitrogen-fixing bacteria in their roots make a good test bed for probing the give-and-take of biological partnerships. The bacteria take carbohydrates and oxygen from the plant; in return, the microbes snag inert atmospheric...

Some trilobites grew their own eyeshades.(Paleobiology)
October 4, 2003... Trilobites strolled the seafloor about 380 million years ago. A thumb-size fossil that preserves the eye structure of one of these multilegged creatures indicates that at least some species were active during the daytime, a lifestyle that...

Ancient tunnel keeps biblical date.(Archaeology)
October 4, 2003... The Siloam Tunnel, a shaft that carried water into ancient Jerusalem from a nearby spring, was probably constructed around 700 B.C., a new radiocarbon-dating study finds. That finding bolsters the credibility of Old Testament verses that credit...

Broken arms way up.(Biomedicine)
October 4, 2003... Adolescence is prime time for broken bones. The body is growing longer bones so fast that mineral density can't keep up. And the active lifestyles of many children lead to falls and collisions. Researchers at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester,...

Scientists retract ecstasy drug finding.(Biomedicine)
October 4, 2003... Researchers at Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions in Baltimore have recanted a controversial report on the dangers of the drug commonly called ecstasy. The scientists reported in the Sept. 27, 2002 Science that one-time use of the mind-altering...

Amid bleak outlook, antibiotic shines.(Drug Development)
October 4, 2003... Research on a novel antibiotic offers a rare dose of optimism as existing microbe-killing compounds are losing effectiveness and the pipeline of new antibiotics is drying up. Injections of the compound called PTK 0796 kept mice alive after...

Toronto travelers wash their hands of disease.(Hygiene)
October 4, 2003... Air travelers in Toronto are more likely to wash their hands after using public restrooms than are travelers in at least five other major North American airports. Donald Low of Toronto's Mt. Sinai Hospital says he suspects that people are...

Resistant staph spreads in communities.(Drug Resistance)
October 4, 2003... Antibiotic-resistant Staphylococcus aureas--once a problem limited mainly to hospitals and nursing homes--has become a menace in numerous communities, reports from Australia, Europe, and North America indicate. The drug-resistant bacteria have...

Drug combination unexpectedly flops.(HIV Therapies)
October 4, 2003... A combination of therapies that researchers anticipated would work well against HIV failed to stop the virus from replicating in more than half the volunteers who received it. A second combination still appears promising, although the study is...

One bug's bane may be another's break.(Microbial Ecology)
October 4, 2003... People who carry pneumococcus bacteria in their nasal passages may be partially protected against having their noses colonized by Staphylococcus aureus. The new finding could have important implications because a pneumococcus vaccine licensed...

ACHOO!: the Most Interesting Book You'll Ever Read About Germs.
October 4, 2003... TRUDEE ROMANEK When you cough, your body pushes out air at the speed of sound U.S. children get 6 to 10 colds a year, on average, but people in Antarctica hardly get any at all. These facts and scores of others come to light in this...

Biology Made Simple.
October 4, 2003... BIOLOGY MADE SIMPLE RITA MARY KING MATHEMATICS MADE SIMPLE: Sixth Edition THOMAS CUSICK Students and other people looking to hone their math and science skills will find these guidebooks a useful investment. Clear, concise lessons...

A Devil's Chaplain: Reflections on Hope, Lies, Science, and Love.
October 4, 2003... RICHARD DAWKINS This collection of essays penned by one of the world's preeminent evolutionary biologists plumbs the author's commitment to scientific truth pursued through solid evidence and reason, These writings span 25 years of...

The Face in the Mirror: the Search for the Origins of Consciousness.
October 4, 2003... JULIAN PAUL KEENAN, WITH GORDON G. GALLUP JR. AND DEAN FALK We often find humor in watching a dog or cat chase its reflection in a mirror or pond. Unlike people, animals don't posses the self-awareness necessary to understand that a mirror...

A Traveler's Guide to Mars: the Mysterious Landscapes of the Red Planet.
October 4, 2003... WILLIAM K. HARTMANN This entertaining book, designed as a travelogue of Mars, includes maps, pictures, history lessons, and advice on touring. Divided into three sections according to the planet's geologic history, the book takes readers...

Overdramatic words.(Letters)
October 4, 2003... I thought "Repulsive Astronomy: Strengthening the case for dark energy" (SN: 8/2/03, p. 67) was somewhat misleading. It referred to dark energy as a "substance," which it's probably not, that's "ripping the cosmos apart," although this phrase...

Wrap rip.(Letters)
October 4, 2003... The new technology in "Layered Approach" (SN: 8/9/03, p. 91) sounds great, but I am concerned about the food wrap described, given that my husband, among others, is acutely allergic to shellfish. If Yasa-sheet is, indeed, made from a crab-shell...

A plodder ponders.(Letters)
October 4, 2003... As a plodder without the turbo gene I can appreciate those fortunate enough to have it ("Turbo Gene: Getting a speed boost from DNA," SN: 8/2/03, p. 70). I would direct the researchers to two other groups of track and field participants: discus...

No known clone.(Letters)
October 4, 2003... In "Winning Bet: Horse and mule clones cross the finish line" (SN: 8/9/03, p. 83), you state that the cloned foal Prometea is a genetic twin of her birth mother which contributed the nuclear DNA. This is not true, as twins have identical...

Explore math with Theoni Pappas.
October 4, 2003... As we look around us, occasionally we see subtle impressions of the presence of mathematics. Some are current; some are left from past centuries. Tracking and discovering the trail of mathematical footprints is both fascinating and rewarding....

Hail the cosmic revolution.(Super Data)
October 11, 2003... With nicknames such as Gilgamesh, Aphrodite, and Athena--as well as Elvis--10 recently discovered supernovas are something special. Indeed, these supernovas provide what appears to be proof of one of the weirdest properties of the universe:...

Metallic nanorods shuttle genes.(Special Delivery)
October 11, 2003... Delivery of health-promoting genes into cells of the body holds enormous promise for preventing and treating diseases. However, the vehicles for those genes in current approaches to gene therapy are generally viruses or synthetic materials,...

Could sonar give whales the bends?(Bad Bubbles)
October 11, 2003... Odd bubbles of fat and gas have turned up in the bodies of marine mammals, raising the question of whether something about human activity in the oceans could give such magnificent divers decompression sickness. Divers of the human sort who...

Memories may form and reform, with sleep.(Restoring Recall)
October 11, 2003... Registering a memory for the long haul doesn't happen all at once, according to new studies of how people learn perceptual and motor skills. Instead, building memory is a three-pronged process that rests on sleep. First, knowledge accrues...

Nobel prizes go to scientists harnessing odd phenomena: superconductivity, superfluidity, imaging with magnetism, and membrane chemistry.
October 11, 2003... The 2003 Nobel prizes in the sciences were announced early this week. Physiology or Medicine Two scientists will share this year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their groundbreaking work in producing images of internal...

Perchlorate found in milk, but risk is debated.(Toxic Controversy)
October 11, 2003... Researchers in Texas have detected the chemical perchlorate in milk, crops, and a significant portion of the state's groundwater. However, it's unclear how much exposure people face through food or water, and a scientific gathering has just...

When genes escape: does it matter to crops and weeds?
October 11, 2003... This may not sound like boffo material, but genetic-engineering-policy specialist Michael Rodemeyer knows his crowd. "As I was coming out here, I thought about making bumper stickers that say, 'Gene flow happens.'" The line gets a good laugh;...

Visionary research: scientists delve into the evolution of color vision in primates.
October 11, 2003... The next time you appreciate the beauty of a rainbow or the subtle hues of an impressionist masterpiece, you'll be taking advantage of the human brain's palette of an estimated 2.3 million colors. Why do people and many nonhuman primate species...

Making the heart burn.(Biomedicine)
October 11, 2003... People in the throes of a heart attack usually experience a burning chest pain. Scientists appear to have pinpointed the cause of that pain: It turns out that heart tissue contains the same cell-surface protein that triggers a sensation of...

Rats join the roster of clones.(Biology)
October 11, 2003... After a long struggle, researchers have finally cloned the rat, a longtime laboratory favorite used to study high blood pressure, diabetes, brain diseases, and many other human illnesses. The accomplishment sets the stage for the creation of...

Mothers reveal their baby faces.(Behavior)
October 11, 2003... Mothers throughout the world talk to their babies using common conventions, such as raising the pitch and exaggerating the emotional tone of their voices. There's now evidence that moms in different cultures also use three distinctive facial...

Weekend weather really is different.(Climate)
October 11, 2003... Analyses of more than 40 years of weather data from around the world reveal that in some regions, the difference between daily high and low temperatures on weekend days varies significantly from the same difference measured on weekdays. Because...

Faint smells of schizophrenia.(Behavior)
October 11, 2003... People who suffer from schizophrenia exhibit symptoms such as apathy, disorganized thinking, hallucinations, and delusions, as well as difficulties in discerning odors. According to a new study, olfactory problems can signal impending...

Was President Taft cognitively impaired?(Biomedicine)
October 11, 2003... President William Howard Taft had severe sleep apnea during his presidency from 1909 to 1913, which could explain his tendency to nod off at work or even while playing cards, medical and historical reports indicate. The condition obstructs...

Cassini confirms Einstein's theory.(Cosmology)
October 11, 2003... No one can accuse the Cassini spacecraft of getting a free fide. En route to a 2004 rendezvous with Saturn, the craft has already been put to work, verifying a key prediction of Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity. Cassini met that...

Scrutinized chemicals linger in atmosphere.(Environment)
October 11, 2003... Don't look up now, but new research indicates that industrial chemicals called fluorotelomer alcohols, or FTOHs, may remain suspended in the air for several weeks on average. Their longevity in the atmosphere suggests that they may widely...

Hubble: the Mirror on the Universe.
October 11, 2003... Since its shaky debut in 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope has produced thousands of images and dramatically changed the way we view the universe. Astronomers also use data from Hubble to estimate how old the Universe is and predict the life...

The Isaac Newton School of Driving: Physics and Your Car.
October 11, 2003... You probably drive or ride in one every day, but you might not know that an automobile exhibits virtually every law of physics. Parker, a former college-physics professor, hopes that readers' familiarity with cars will help them understand...

Merchants of Immortality: Chasing the Dream of Human Life Extension.
October 11, 2003... Some scientists believe that advances in medical care alone will extend life expectancy by 25 years over the next century. Others want to go ever further with technology devoted purely to extending life. Hall reveals the possibilities of the...

Monster of God: the Man-Eating Predator in the Jungles of History and the Mind.
October 11, 2003... Early hominids roaming the Saharan plain kept a constant lookout for saber-toothed tigers. Today, travelers through Yellowstone National Park have to be wary of grizzly bears. People have usually lived in fear of certain animals that view us as...

Spoken Here: Travels Among Threatened Languages.
October 11, 2003... While some 6,000 languages are spoken today, Abley says that by the end of the century, 5,400 of them will crawl into the tomb currently occupied by Latin. He vividly depicts the exotic and often-remote locales he's visited where tongues still...

Centenarian advantage: some old folks make cholesterol in big way.
October 18, 2003... Healthy living undoubtedly plays a role in longevity. But studies have shown that siblings of centenarians are 8 to 17 times as likely as the average person to see 100. That link suggests that a potent benefit runs in the family's genes. ...

Your spiral or mine? Snail gene reverses coil, makes new species.
October 18, 2003... A snail with a shell spiraling to the right can't mate readily with a lefty. So, changes in the single gene that controls shell direction have created new snail species, say researchers. Among the 20 species of Euhadra snails, an abundant...

Fossils of flyers: bones tell why Atlantic albatross disappeared.
October 18, 2003... Two years ago, scientists described 5-million-year-old albatross fossils representing five different species. The fossils, found in North Carolina, raised a question: If albatross once soared above the Atlantic Ocean, why do they now nest only...

Poor relations: Casino windfall reveals poverty's toll on Cherokee kids' behavior.
October 18, 2003... In a cruel double whammy, poor people endure material deprivation while experiencing more than their share of mental disorders. Some scientists theorize that this disproportion of mental illness stems from individuals with genetically based...

New quarktet: subatomic oddity hints at pentaparticle family.
October 18, 2003... Physicists at a European particle accelerator say they've spotted a never-before-seen elementary particle composed of five of the fundamental constituents known as quarks and antiquarks. In contrast, protons and neutrons contain three quarks,...

A shot at pain prevention: nerve-healing protein relieves rats' misery.
October 18, 2003... A chemical that spurs growth of nerve cells during fetal development may provide a new way to treat severe chronic pain that results from nerve damage, according to a study of rodents. "Is this a promising candidate for a drug? The answer...

Nobel Prize in Chemistry opens channels: research reveals vital function of tiny pores in cell membranes.
October 18, 2003... The 2003 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, awarded Oct. 8, honors two researchers whose pioneering work on channels in cell membranes has elucidated how ions and water molecules get in and out of cells. Such protein-based channels or pores underlie...

Erectus ahoy: prehistoric seafaring floats into view.
October 18, 2003... As the sun edged above the horizon on Jan. 31, 2000, a dozen men boarded a bamboo raft off the east coast of the Indonesian island of Bali. Each gripped a wooden paddle and, in unison, deftly stroked the nearly 40-foot-long craft into the open...

Best guess: economists explore betting markets as prediction tools.
October 18, 2003... During a highly charged week in Washington, D.C., last July, a research project sponsored by the Department of Defense sparked a furious outcry from prominent politicians and was then hastily axed by the Pentagon. The project, known as the...

Reptile remains fill in fossil record.(Paleontology)
October 18, 2003... The fossil remains of a sphenodontian, an ancient, lizardlike reptile, are helping span a 120-million-year data gap between its ancestors and today's tuatara, which are the sole survivors of a once prominent group. Sphenodontians evolved...

Do arctic diets protect prostates?(Nutrition)
October 18, 2003... Prostate cancer's prevalence and its increase with age tend to be consistent from country to country. A new study finds one major exception to this cancer's high prevalence in older men: Arctic Inuit populations. Assessments of cancer in...

To the moon, European style.(Astronomy)
October 18, 2003... At the end of September, the European Space Agency launched its first mission to the moon. The probe's main goal is to test new technologies, including an ion-propulsion system. Such a system exerts a tiny but steady thrust that will slowly...

Danger, danger, cry injured cells.(Immunology)
October 18, 2003... Lending support to a controversial theory of how the immune system works, researchers have found that injured or dying cells release uric acid, which then stimulates the activity of key immune cells. Biologists have long described the...

Smog chemicals found even in rural western plains.(Earth Science)
October 18, 2003... Analyses of the atmosphere over the south-central United States show that emissions from the region's oil and natural gas industries contribute to air pollution--even over remote Kansas cornfields--that can surpass the noxious mix found in...

Magnets, my foot!(Biomedicine)
October 18, 2003... People in the United States spend roughly $500 million every year on wearable magnets for treating aches and pains. The devices are advertised as increasing blood flow and altering nerve signals. A new study finds that, at least for one...

Dictionary of Birds of the United States.
October 18, 2003... JOEL ELLIS HOLLOWAY The more than 900 entries include the resident birds of all 50 states. This dictionary is touted as the only one to trace the derivation of scientific bird names back to the original Greek. Other language sources for...

Entering the Stone: On Caves and Feeling through the Dark.
October 18, 2003... BARBARA HURD Claustrophobic readers may wince at Hurd's descriptions of spelunking, but they'll find the author's journeys a rare opportunity to explore the wild caves of the world. Hurd documents the life forms that thrive in this unusual...

Mayo Clinic Family Health Book Third Edition.
October 18, 2003... SCOTT LITIN, ED. Completely revised and updated, this encyclopedia surveys all aspects of human health, from infancy to old age, With a strong emphasis on preventive care, initial sections discuss elements of good health, including...

The Prism and the Pendulum: The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments in Science.
October 18, 2003... ROBERT P. CREASE Few people outside science refer to experiments as beautiful, but scientists use the word to describe those rare events that "crystallize a new insight and reshape how we perceive things," says Crease. A beautiful...

Star Watch: The Amateur Astronomer's Guide to Finding, Observing, and Learning About Over 125 Celestial Objects.
October 18, 2003... PHILIP S. HARRINGTON Early chapters in this guide familiarize novice astronomers with terminology and examine Earth's closest neighbor, the moon. Then, Harrington begins a tour of objects in Earth's four seasonal skies, including the sun,...

Tilt: A Skewed History of the Tower of Pisa.
October 18, 2003... NICHOLAS SHRADY During its 800-year history, Pisa's iconic campanile has been surrounded by mystery and lore. Shrady peels away that mystique as he dissects the structure itself and its role in history. For instance, Galileo was said to...

This way out.(Letters)
October 18, 2003... I passed out three different times from temporary heart stoppages before I got my pacemaker, and I remember dreaming twice. Since I am not religious, my dreams weren't similar to reported "near-death experiences" ("Near death events take...

Pained expressions.(Letters)
October 18, 2003... "Switching Off Pain: Modeling relief on the action of marijuana" (SN: 8/16/03, p. 99) notes tetrahydrocannabinol's (THC's) side effects of "sedation, giddiness, and paranoia" and then states that a new drug, AM1241, alleviates pain "without...

Corrections.(Letters)
October 18, 2003... In "The Body Electric," (SN: 9/20/03, p. 187), the embryos pictured on page 187 are of chickens, not frogs. "Letting the Dog Genome Out" (SN: 9/27/03, p. 197), misspelled the name of researcher Claire M. Fraser of the Institute of Genomic...

IQ yo-yo: test changes alter retardation diagnoses.
October 25, 2003... Since average scores on particular IQ tests rise a few points every 3 or 4 years, those tests become obsolete after a couple of decades. In order to reset the average score to 100, harder IQ tests are devised every 15 to 20 years. Trickier...

Chicken little? Study cites arsenic in poultry.
October 25, 2003... Most chicken eaten in the United States contains three to four times as much arsenic as do other kinds of meat and poultry. That finding may require researchers to revise upward their estimates of how much of this toxic metal people consume in...

Timing is everything: implantable polymer chip delivers meds on schedule.
October 25, 2003... Many pills and injections could become history if a group of drug-delivery researchers has its way. The team has fabricated a polymer microchip that stores multiple drug doses and, when implanted in the body, could automatically release the...

First viruses, now tumors: AIDS drug shows promise against brain cancers.
October 25, 2003... An unlikely partnership between AIDS researchers seeking new antiviral therapies and developmental biologists exploring how the brain forms has produced a promising new drug for the fight against deadly brain tumors. In cell and animal studies,...

Bad for the bones: thwarted hormone leads to skeletal decay.
October 25, 2003... A hormone with one widely recognized task may not be single purposed after all. Thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH), which is made in the pituitary gland and circulates in the body, pumps up production of thyroid hormone, an important regulator...

When really big winds collide.
October 25, 2003... Outbursts of a massive star created the gaseous shell known as the Crescent nebula. Rushing toward a supernova death, the star (not shown) had expanded enormously, jettisoning its outer layers at some 32,000 kilometers per hour. Radiation from...

Bob, bob, bobbin' along: dinosaur buoyancy may explain odd tracks.
October 25, 2003... Some of the heftiest four-legged dinosaurs ever to walk the Earth occasionally left sets of footprints that include only the imprints of their front feet. New laboratory and computer studies may explain what those animals were doing with their...

Super spinner: seven-atom speck acts like superfluid.
October 25, 2003... Superfluids are weird liquids that flow with no friction and can perform fantastic feats, such as spontaneously crawling over the walls of containers. Theorists have proposed that quantum-mechanical interactions among even a few atoms can give...

The nature of things: attempts to change the periodic table raise eyebrows.
October 25, 2003... One day, during the spring semester of 1999, L. Bruce Railsback turned against one of science's most visible icons: the periodic table of chemical elements. He was using a conventional periodic table mounted on the wall to illustrate a...

New PCBS? Throughout life, our bodies accumulate flame retardants, and scientists are starting to worry.
October 25, 2003... Polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE) is hardly a household phrase. Yet it probably should be. Household products ranging from kids' pajamas to computers release these brominated flame retardants. The chemicals have been turning up in house and...