Science News articles from October 2007

Science News archives from October 2007

Dangerous DNA: genes linked to suicidal thoughts with med use.(This Week)
October 6, 2007... Two gene variations appear frequently in depressed patients who contemplate killing themselves during treatment with a common antidepressant medication, a new study finds. In the study, reports of suicidal thoughts occurred from 2 to 15...

Lake-bottom bounty: some Arctic sediments didn't erode during recent ice ages.(This Week)
October 6, 2007... The kilometers-thick ice sheets that smothered northeastern Canada and scoured the landscape there during recent ice ages left sediments intact in some locales. This surprising finding could prove a boon to climate researchers. Most...

No slippery slope: Physician-aided deaths are rare among those presumed vulnerable.(This Week)
October 6, 2007... Over the past quarter-century, opponents of physician-assisted death have argued against the practice on the grounds that vulnerable groups--the very old, the poor, and the mentally ill, to name three--would turn to, or be pushed toward, such...

Match made in heaven: nearby galaxies resemble faraway type.(This Week)
October 6, 2007... Astronomers can't send a telescope billions of light-years into space to take close-ups of the most remote galaxies, but they appear to have done the next best thing. Researchers say they've found a class of galaxies in our cosmic backyard that...

Fueling a flu debate: do vaccinations save lives among the elderly?(This Week)
October 6, 2007... It would seem to be a no-brainer: Vaccinating elderly people against influenza each fall should lead to fewer hospital stays and higher survival rates. But past studies haven't established such trends. Researchers now report that elderly...

Just a quick bite.(This Week)(Brief article)(Photograph)
October 6, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Saber-toothed cats living in North America up to 10,000 years ago relied on a strong pounce and a swift bite to kill their prey. Smilodon fatalis, often erroneously called tigers, didn't have jaws strong enough to...

Shields down: a cancer-fighting gene declines in old age.(This Week)
October 6, 2007... As people age, their risk of cancer increases, primarily because cancer-causing damage to DNA accumulates over time. A new study suggests another possible reason for the increased risk. Experiments in mice show that a key tumor-suppressing gene...

Crowcam: camera on bird's tail captures bird ingenuity.(This Week)
October 6, 2007... Biologists studying tool use in a tropical crow species have fastened tiny video cameras to the birds and recorded their search for food. "We are the first ones to do this on wild birds," says Christian Rutz of the University of Oxford in...

Sputnik + 50: remembering the dawn of the space age.(Cover story)
October 6, 2007... Well, I say the fun has just begun We're on Sputnik Number One A flying through outer space At a rockin' rollin' pace Oh! We're gonna get out kicks On a little ole thing called a Sputnik--Sputnik (Satellite Girl) In the fall of 1957,...

Stalking the green meat eaters: why ecologists love these toothless predators.(pitcher plants)
October 6, 2007... Ecologist Nick Gotelli walks on water, and he Lappears to have every confidence that his two visitors soon will too. A man who speaks and moves with precision, he sounds plausible. It s easy to overlook slightly alarming details about the field...

Neptune's balmy south pole.(PLANETARY SCIENCE)(Brief article)
October 6, 2007... The first temperature map of Neptune's lower atmosphere shows that the planet's south pole is about 10[degrees]C warmer than any other place on the planet. The average temperature of the atmosphere's lower depths is -200[degrees]C. The south...

Hot stuff.(PHYSICS)(Brief article)
October 6, 2007... Researchers have used a plasma to ramp up a laser's intensity by an unprecedented 20,000 rimes. Standard lasers produce orderly streams of light by pumping energy into a medium--usually a gas, liquid, or crystal--and then coaxing the...

Tough-guy bluebirds need a frontier.(ZOOLOGY)(Brief article)
October 6, 2007... Among western bluebirds, the scrappier males push into new territory first. But mild-mannered dads eventually take over, a long-term analysis finds. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Western bluebirds (Sialia mexicana) are recolonizing their...

Iron to blame.(CLIMATE)(blooms cause by iron)(Brief article)
October 6, 2007... Huge algal blooms in the Indian Ocean dance to their own rhythm. In other places, such blooms occur every spring, when masses of tiny plants multiply in surface waters. But off the toast of Madagascar, the greenery erupts in late summer, and...

Lonely white cells.(IMMUNOLOGY)(Brief article)
October 6, 2007... The white blood cells of chronically lonely people display abnormal patterns of gene activation, according to a new report. Study leader Steve Cole of the University of California, Los Angeles says the findings may indicate that the...

They fertilized with what?(AGRICULTURE)(Brief article)
October 6, 2007... Talk about your high yuck factor. Researchers in Finland have just published results of a study showing that farmers can substitute human urine for conventional fertilizer and get a notable increase in cabbage yields. Surendra K. Pradhan...

Earth Then and Now: Amazing Images of Our Changing World.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
October 6, 2007... EARTH THEN AND NOW: Amazing Images of Our Changing World RED PEARCE This collection of images proves, perhaps once and for all, that a picture's worth a thousand words. Paired images, taken at different points in time, reveal the ways...

The Survival Imperative: Using Space to Protect Earth.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
October 6, 2007... THE SURVIVAL IMPERATIVE: Using Space to Protect Earth WILLIAM E. BURROWS The possibility that an asteroid may crash into Earth ranks near the bottom of most people's worry lists. However, Burrows points out, such a collision is...

The Red Volcanoes: Face to Face with the Mountains of Fire.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
October 6, 2007... THE RED VOLCANOES: Face to Face with the Mountains of Fire G. BRAD LEWIS AND PAUL-EDOUARD BERNARD DE LAJARTRE Hidden beneath our feet lies the molten heart of Earth, composed of a tire that reveals itself in furious, erupting volcanoes....

Mind, Life, and Universe: Conversations with Great Scientists of Our Time.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
October 6, 2007... MIND, LIFE, AND UNIVERSE: Conversations with Great Scientists of Our Time LYNN MARGULIS AND EDUARDO PUNSET, EDS, Based on interviews conducted by Spanish science-television personality Punset and American microbiologist Lynn Margulis,...

Space Art: How to Draw and Paint Planets, Moons, and Landscapes of Alien Worlds.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
October 6, 2007... SPACE ART: How to Draw and Paint Planets, Moons, and Landscapes of Alien Worlds MICHAEL CARROLL Despite the availability of telescopes and cameras mounted on space rovers, there is still room for the artistic touch in portraying the...

Cat scam?(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
October 6, 2007... Oscar the cat possibly does identify dying patients ("Grim Reap Purr: Nursing home feline senses the end," SN: 7/28/07, p. 53), but the story you printed presents anecdotal rather than scientific evidence and does not belong in a science...

Bees' killer.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
October 6, 2007... In "Not-So-Elementary Bee Mystery" (SN: 7/28/07, p. 56), the researchers postulate six reasons for the collapse of the bee colonies. The reason, in my opinion, is evident when considering the extensive use of insecticides throughout the world....

Walk this way.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
October 6, 2007... A simpler explanation for orangutans walking upright like humans ("Red-Ape Stroll," SN: 8/4/07, p. 72) is that this feature evolved in a common ancestor that did not include African apes. In other words, orangutans, not chimpanzees, are our...

Numbers game.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
October 6, 2007... It's certainly true that "[T]he most important factor that correlates with success in college is what is done in high school math" ("More math helps young scientists," SN: 8/4/07, p. 78). But is the headline true? How about, "More years of team...

Correction.(LETTERS)(Correction notice)
October 6, 2007... The size of the hotspot on the extrasolar planet described in "Passages" (SN: 7/14/07, p. 24), at 1.5 times Earth's diameter, should have been given as about 19,000 kilometers.

Eat a killer: snake dines safely with strategic delays.(This Week)
October 13, 2007... An Australian snake feeds on dangerous frogs by striking them with venom and then backing off long enough for the frogs' defense chemicals to degrade, say researchers. The floodplain death adder (Acanthophis praelongus) even has different...

Shifty talk: probing the process of word evolution.(This Week)
October 13, 2007... Here's an evolutionary talking point: TWO new studies quantify parts of the mechanism by which frequently used words change slowly over many millennia whereas rarely used words more rapidly take on new forms. In fact, frequency of word...

Sunstruck: Solar hurricanes rip comet's tail.(This Week)(Comet 2P/Encke )
October 13, 2007... Comet 2P/Encke has been looping around the sun for thousands of years. But last April, just after the comet slipped inside Mercury's orbit, magnetic hurricanes belching from the sun chopped off its ion tail. Spacecraft images of the event...

Moving up the charts: drug-resistant bug invades military, civilian hospitals.(This Week)(Acinetobacter baumannii )
October 13, 2007... A common bacterium is becoming more virulent and drug resistant in hospitals. The Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) now ranks Acinetobacter baumannii on its list of "bad bugs" alongside two perennial chart toppers,...

Mice, magnetism, and reactions on solids: nobels awarded in genetics, materials science, and surface chemistry.(Mario R. Capecchi, Martin J. Evans and Oliver Smithies )
October 13, 2007... The 2007 Nobel prizes in the sciences were announced early this week. Physiology or Medicine The discovery of techniques to identify the roles of genes has earned three scientists the 2007 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. ...

Spying vision cells: eye's motion detectors are finally found.
October 13, 2007... The eye's retina does more than register images the way film or a digital camera detector does. To allow it to begin analyzing an image, the retina has specialized nerve cells that respond to motion or other important features in the image...

Fossil mystery solved?(This Week)(fossilized beetles)(Brief article)
October 13, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Paleontologists have long wondered how aquatic creatures such as water beetles end up fossilized in amber, a material derived from hardened tree sap. One exotic suggestion was that the creatures had lived in...

Disappearing ink: tattoo technology for modern impermanence.(Freedom-2 ink tattoo )(Cover story)
October 13, 2007... Watch a couple of episodes of the reality television show Miami Ink and you realize that tattooing has shed its outlaw image. People from all walks of life come into the show's featured tattoo studio wanting to get designs etched into their...

Invasive, indeed: one species--homo sapiens--consumes nearly a quarter of earth's natural productivity.
October 13, 2007... Some people live lightly on the land: Bedouin clans roam the deserts of the Middle East and North Africa; small groups of indigenous people follow reindeer herds across frigid Arctic terrain; and tribes of hunter-gatherers forage the plains of...

Martian rovers survive storm.(PLANETARY SCIENCE)(rover Spirit and Victoria)(Brief article)
October 13, 2007... Three months after being stopped in their tracks by a global dust storm on the Red Planet, NASA's twin Mars rovers have resumed operations. On Sept. 13, the rover Opportunity finally began a long-delayed descent into the 800-meter-wide Victoria...

Exercise steps up as depression buster.(BEHAVIOR)(Brief article)
October 13, 2007... New evidence indicates that aerobic exercise, practiced either in a supervised group or alone at home, eases depression almost as well as a commonly prescribed antidepressant medication does. Exercise achieved comparable results for...

A different spin.(EARTH SCIENCE)(Brief article)
October 13, 2007... The Earth's innards may steer seismic waves in stranger ways than scientists anticipated. Jung-Fu Lin of Lawrence Livermore (Calif.) National Laboratory and his team performed a lab experiment on ferropericlase--a mixture of iron and...

Diabetes precursor may be checked by omega-3 fatty acids.(BIOMEDICINE)(Brief article)
October 13, 2007... A diet rich in omega-3 fatty acids might delay the onset of type 1, or juvenile-onset, diabetes in children prone to the disease, a new study suggests. Researchers identified 1,770 babies who were at increased risk of developing type 1...

Ancient DNA moves Neandertals eastward.(ANTHROPOLOGY)(deoxyribonucleic acid)(Brief article)
October 13, 2007... Neandertals, ancient humanlike denizens of Europe and the Middle East with controversial evolutionary links to Homo sapiens, inhabited areas at least 2,000 kilometers further east than researchers have commonly assumed, according to a new DNA...

Arctic sea ice falls to modern low.(CLIMATE)(Brief article)
October 13, 2007... The area of the Arctic Ocean covered by ice fell to a modern low this year, breaking all records kept since satellites began monitoring the poles almost 30 years ago. Some Arctic sea ice always melts in summer, generally reaching its...

Antibiotic improves recovery from stroke.(BIOMEDICINE)(Brief article)
October 13, 2007... An antibiotic can limit brain damage and disability in stroke patients when given within a day of the stroke, a new study suggests. Researchers designed a study in which they received notification whenever a stroke patient arrived at Edith...

Light does some weird math.(PHYSICS)(Brief article)
October 13, 2007... Light is made of photons. Add a photon to a light pulse, then take one out, and you'd think you'd be back where you started. But in the world of quantum physics, things aren't so straightforward. For one thing, quantum uncertainty means...

Avoid Boring People: Lessons from a Life in Science.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
October 13, 2007... AVOID BORING PEOPLE: Lessons from a Life in Science JAMES D. WATSON More than a half-century ago, James Watson and his research partner, Francis Crick, discovered the structure of DNA, opening the door to modern-day advances in molecular...

Red Moon Rising: Sputnik and the Hidden Rivalries that Ignited the Space Age.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
October 13, 2007... RED MOON RISING: Sputnik and the Hidden Rivalries that Ignited the Space Age MATTHEW BRZEZINSKI Following the end of World War II, the United States and Russia, erstwhile allies, began to vie for technological and military supremacy. The...

Proust and the Squid: The story and Science of the Reading Brain.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
October 13, 2007... PROUST AND THE SQUID: The story and Science of the Reading Brain MARYANNE WOLF The ability to read represents one of the most remarkable adaptations of the human brain. Reading is not a preprogrammed function like speech, yet most children...

Amazing Ben Franklin Inventions You Build Yourself.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
October 13, 2007... AMAZING BEN FRANKLIN INVENTIONS YOU BUILD YOURSELF CARMELLA VAN VLEET What do bifocals, paper money, and lightning rods have in common? All were invented or influenced by scientist and politician Ben Franklin. A brilliant man, Franklin not...

Earth Under Fire: How Global Warming Is Changing the world.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
October 13, 2007... EARTH UNDER FIRE: How Global Warming Is Changing the world GARY BRAASCH Eight years ago, photojournalist Braasch began documenting the effects of global warming. His travels took him across Arctic glaciers, into an Australian cloud forest,...

Another idea blown ...(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)(Brief article)
October 13, 2007... Conservation by America is not going to decrease global warming ("Asian Forecast: Hazy, Warmer--Clouds of pollution heat lower atmosphere," SN: 8/4/07,p. 68). We need to imitate known global-cooling events, such as the Krakatoa volcano...

... Or out the window?(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)(Brief article)
October 13, 2007... Based on the Environmental Protection Agency's Web resources on radon, I find that the decreases in radon levels in the summer are unlikely to be caused by a lack of air currents from less temperature differential in houses ("Beware summer...

Leave the bottle.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)(Brief article)
October 13, 2007... Recent reports of plastics such as dioxin and now bisphenol A ("Bad for Baby: New risks found for plastic constituent; SN: 8/11/07, p. 84) make me wonder if there are any Alzheimer's-linked aluminum ions or atoms or whatever floating around in...

Upside of downhill.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)(Brief article)
October 13, 2007... Osteocalcin ("Skeletal Discovery: Bone cells affect metabolism," SN: 8/11/07, p. 83) may well be the answer to the startling, nearly three-times-stronger glucose control observed in downhill walkers, compared with people walking uphill (SN:...

Better than pap: blood test detects cervical cancer.(This Week)
October 20, 2007... For more than 50 years, doctors have used Papanicolaou tests--better known as Pap smears--to screen women for cervical cancer. But researchers now report that a newer test, based on a blood sample, gives a more accurate diagnosis. In a Pap...

Going coastal sea cave yields ancient signs of modern behavior.(This Week)
October 20, 2007... At Pinnacle Point on South Africa's southern coast, a cave perched above the sea has provided scientists with evidence of a set of surprisingly complex behaviors practiced by Stone Age people about 164,000 years ago, near the evolutionary dawn...

Beware the starlings: common birds can carry avian influenza.(This Week)
October 20, 2007... Starlings, introduced into North America from Europe in the 19th century, have become a widespread nuisance. And they just got more annoying: It turns out they're good at carrying bird flu. During the past two winters, common songbirds in...

Regulating muscle decline: small molecules linked to degenerative diseases.(This Week)(microRNAs, muscular diseases)
October 20, 2007... Deteriorating muscles in people with diseases such as muscular dystrophy have abnormal amounts of important gene-regulating molecules called microRNAs, new research shows. These microRNAs--snippets of the molecule that copies genetic...

Axion gone: new tests find no sign of anomalous particle.(This Week)
October 20, 2007... Last year, physicists reported seeing tantalizing experimental traces of the axion, a hypothetical subatomic particle that's been mentioned as a possible constituent of cosmic dark matter. But the axion was showing up where theory said it...

Bad acid: ocean's pH drop threatens snail defense.(This Week)(periwinkles' defense system)
October 20, 2007... A predicted worldwide fall in ocean alkalinity could have subtle effects on a small shoreline snail, shutting down one of its best defenses against crab predators, researchers say. The surface waters of the world's oceans are slightly...

Portrait of a Martian crater.(This Week)(Photograph)
October 20, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Swept by wind and apparently sculpted by water, this area within the Red Planet's 140.kilometer-wide Gale crater was imaged by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's HiRISE camera. Revealing features only a half-meter...

Looking for biomarkers: protein signature may warn of impending Alzheimer's disease.(This Week)
October 20, 2007... Amounts of certain proteins in the blood could tip off doctors to nascent Alzheimer's disease in people who don't yet show clear symptoms of the illness, researchers report. The beginnings of Alzheimer's resemble the occasional...

Stem cells from virgin eggs: nonviable embryos could answer ethical concerns.
October 20, 2007... Last winter, two female Komodo dragons at separate zoos in England gave their keepers big surprises. With no contact from any male, each of the giant lizards laid a clutch of viable eggs, some of which hatched healthy young (SN: 12/23/06, p....

Not just hitchhikers: human pathogens make homes on plants.
October 20, 2007... Jeri Barak's tomato plants have a weird disease breaking out on them. Not the biggest surprise, perhaps, since she's a bona fide U.S. Department of Agriculture plant pathologist. But what's afflicting Barak's tomatoes isn't some everyday farm...

Same pathogens people and plants: some bacteria can cross the line.
October 20, 2007... The average gardener doesn't worry about giving the petunias a cold or catching a rash from the blemished leaves of a rose. There's a species barrier, for heaven's sake. But that barrier may not stand as tall and strong as we think. Biologists...

Platinumfree fuel cell.(TECHNOLOGY)(Hydrazine hydrate)(Brief article)
October 20, 2007... Many obstacles stand in the way of ditching the internal combustion engine in favor of electric motors feeding off hydrogen fuel cells. Such a change would require new infrastructure for the delivery, storage, and distribution of hydrogen,...

Titan: land of lakes--and drizzle.(PLANETARY SCIENCE)(Saturn's moon)(Brief article)
October 20, 2007... A newly assembled mosaic of radar images of Saturn's hydrocarbon-shrouded moon Titan, taken over the past 18 months by the Cassini spacecraft, shows what are probably hydrocarbon lakes and seas at the moon's north pole. At least one of the...

Motion of two nearby galaxies clouds the picture.(ASTRONOMY)(Large and Small Magellanic Clouds )(Brief article)
October 20, 2007... Astronomers may have to rewrite the textbooks on the two galaxies closest to the Milky Way. A new analysis confirms previous indications that the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds are not gravitationally bound to our galaxy but are instead...

CD players could serve as cheap lab tools.(TECHNOLOGY)(Brief article)
October 20, 2007... The average home-entertainment disc player is good for audio and video, but a talented hacker could apparently expand the machine's horizons to include medical diagnoses and chemical tests. Normally, the devices' lasers scan a CD (compact...

Feet of clay, but superstrong.(MATERIALS SCIENCE)(Brief article)
October 20, 2007... To make clay strong, just add glue. Nanotechnology promises to deliver materials that will possess, on a large scale, the exceptional mechanical properties of tiny particles such as carbon nanotubes or the mineral grains that constitute clay....

Bacteria thrive by freeloading.(MICROBIOLOGY)(Brief article)
October 20, 2007... They say that cheaters never win, but some bacteria appear to do quite well by adopting this strategy. The guilty party is a mutant form of the bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa, which can infect people with weakened immune systems and is...

Emotional memory.(NEUROSCIENCE)(effect of Norepinephrine to memory)(Brief article)
October 20, 2007... Where were you on Sept. 11, 20017 Or when the shuttle Challenger exploded in 19867 Heightened emotions cause experiences to crystallize into lasting and vivid memories. This boost in memory formation is due in part to the stress hormone...

Quirkology: How We Discover the Big Truths in Small Things.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
October 20, 2007... QUIRKOLOGY: How We Discover the Big Truths in Small Things RICHARD WISEMAN A student of human behavior for decades, Wiseman has discovered interesting facts about lying, decision making, and humor. Among the behaviors he has investigated...

Inside the Body: Fantastic Images From Beneath the Skin.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
October 20, 2007... INSIDE THE BODY: Fantastic Images from Beneath the Skin SUSAN GREENFIELD Modern medical technology allows physicians and scientists to see the inner workings of the human body with unprecedented detail. Light micrographs enable scientists...

The Best American Science and Nature Writing.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
October 20, 2007... THE BEST AMERICAN SCIENCE AND NATURE WRITING RICHARD PRESTON, ED. A newly emerging field called molecular gastronomy is shaking things up in the cultivated culinary world in Paris. Male bighorn sheep may reveal secrets about the evolution...

Vital Signs 2007-2008.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
October 20, 2007... VITAL SIGNS 2007-2008 THE WORLDWATCH INSTITUTE Produced annually by the worldwatch Institute, the Vital Signs series highlights critical developments affecting the present and future of Planet Earth. This year's guide focuses on 44 trends that...

The Jesuit and the Skull: Teilhard de Chardin, Evolution, and the Search for Peking Man.(Books: A selection of new and notable books of scientific interest)(Brief article)(Book review)
October 20, 2007... THE JESUIT AND THE SKULL: Teilhard de Chardin, Evolution, and the Search for Peking Man AMIR D, ACZEL As the battle between the proponents of evolution and of intelligent design rages on, Aczel examines the earliest days of the...

Well, read.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
October 20, 2007... Margit L. Bleecker appears to have discovered that those who score highly on reading tests also score highly on tests of memory, attention, and concentration ("How reading may protect the brain," SN: 8/18/07, p. 110). I don't find that highly...

How it happened stance.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
October 20, 2007... "Alien Pizza, Anyone?" (SN: 8/18/07, p. 107) reviews efforts to explain why certain biological molecules tend to be all right-handed (e.g., sugars) or left-handed (e.g., amino acids). An explanation might lie in the evolution of enzymes...

Road worries.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
October 20, 2007... The research described in "Road Bumps: Why dirt roads develop a washboard surface" (SN: 8/]8/07, p. 102) draws sound conclusions. However, the context suggests the tests were done at constant speeds. I submit there is yet another cause. It has...

Digging the scene: dinos burrowed, built dens.(This Week)(paleontologists discover dinosaur bones)
October 27, 2007... Paleontologists have unearthed an ancient, sediment-filled burrow that holds remains of the creatures that dug it. The find is the first indisputable evidence that some dinosaurs maintained an underground lifestyle for at least part of their...

Catch a wave: carbon nanotubes go wireless.(This Week)
October 27, 2007... Despite all the hubbub about carbon nanotubes as possible building blocks of super-strong materials or as components of super-small electronics, few practical applications have yet come to fruition. Integrating nanotubes into functioning...

Let there be aluminum-42: experiment creates surprise isotope.(This Week)
October 27, 2007... Physicists have created the heaviest isotope yet of magnesium, but in their experiments an unexpected isotope of aluminum also showed up. The findings could help astrophysicists understand occasional X-my emissions from neutron stars that are...

Good buzz: tiny vibrations may limit fat-cell formation.(This Week)
October 27, 2007... Young mice that spend time on a mildly vibrating platform increase muscle and bone production at the expense of fat, researchers report. The finding suggests that exposure to subtle mechanical movement--even a modest buzz--might beneficially...

Odd couples: big black holes challenge star theory.(This Week)
October 27, 2007... The most massive stars in the universe collapse to form black holes at the end of their lives. Theory suggests that such black holes can't have much more than about 10 times the sun's mass, but a team has now identified one that tips the scales...

Not so clear-cut: soil erosion may not have led to Mayan downfall.(This Week)
October 27, 2007... Hand-planted maize, beans, and squash sustained the Mayans for millennia, until their culture collapsed about 1,100 years ago. Some researchers have suggested that the Mayans' very success in turning forests into farmland led to soil erosion...