Science News articles from September 2008

Science News archives from September 2008

Anniversaries inspire timely ruminations.(FROM THE EDITOR)
September 13, 2008... Anniversaries are seldom really newsworthy. They're by definition about something old. But anniversaries often offer good excuses for putting new areas of scientific exploration into historical perspective. A century ago, Hermann Minkowski...

Scientific observations.(SCIENCE NOTEBOOK)(Ismail Serageldin)(Brief article)
September 13, 2008... "There is a central core of universal values that any truly modern society must possess, and these are very much the values that science promotes: rationality, creativity, the search for truth, adherence to codes of behavior, and a certain...

Science past: from Science News Letter, September 13, 1958.(SCIENCE NOTEBOOK)(Ribonucleic acid's role in cell differentiation)(Brief article)
September 13, 2008... RNA INFLUENCES CELL DIFFERENTIATION--Ribonucleic acid has been pinpointed as having an essential role in cell differentiation, the process by which the early embryo's look alike cells become nerve, bone, skin and other organs. Working with...

Science future.(SCIENCE NOTEBOOK)(Brief article)(Calendar)
September 13, 2008... September 7-9 The first INCF Congress of Neuroinformatics. To be held in Stockholm. Visit www.neuroinformatics2008.org Sept. 21-Nov. 2 The walk-through Spider Pavilion opens at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County....

The (-est).(SCIENCE NOTEBOOK)(world's thinnest balloon)(Brief article)
September 13, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] This is no party decoration. Researchers at Cornell University have developed the world's thinnest balloon. Made of a single layer of graphite just one atom thick, the membrane is impermeable to even the tiniest...

Environment.(SN Online: www.sciencenews.org)(Brief article)
September 13, 2008... The number of oxygen-starved coastal areas, known as dead zones, is on the rise worldwide. Rachel Ehrenberg provides the latest tally and explains the effect on ocean life online in "Coastal dead zones expanding."

Math trek.(SN Online: www.sciencenews.org)(nervous system )(Brief article)
September 13, 2008... The nervous system is designed to see images in three dimensions. But in a new series of videos, mathematicians explain how you can view the world in four, Julie J. Rehmeyer reports in her column.

Lacking oxygen.(Science Stats)
September 13, 2008... Cumulative number of aquatic dead zones worldwide reported in scientific papers, by decade [GRAPHIC OMITTED]

Doctors debate death definition for transplants: success with infant hearts shows that timing matters.(STORY ONE)
September 13, 2008... A heart stops beating in one person. It is transplanted and restarted in another. Was the individual from whom the heart was taken really dead? That is a question neurologist James Bernat of the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in...

FBI describes the science used to trace source of anthrax spores: bacteria's genetic fingerprints prove critical to case.(Science & Society)
September 13, 2008... WASHINGTON -- The FBI has offered reporters a glimpse at the science behind the investigation of the 2001 anthrax mailings, which resulted in five deaths. Genetic signatures of the bacteria were prominent clues that eventually led the...

Nanoparticles conspire with free radicals: dose of carcinogens could be comparable to smoking.(Molecules)
September 13, 2008... PHILADELPHIA -- The daily exposure to free radicals from car exhaust, smokestacks and even your neighbors' barbecue could be as harmful as smoking, according to a new study. Many combustion processes, such as those in a car engine, create tiny...

New coat for spacecraft.(MEETING NOTES: American Chemical Society August 17-21, Philadelphia)(Brief article)
September 13, 2008... A thin-sheet material would make it feasible to build Earth-orbiting satellites as light as five kilograms. Prasanna Chandrasekhar of Ashwin-Ushas Corp. in Lakewood, N.J., said coating spacecraft with the new material could eliminate bulky...

Safer blood thinner.(MEETING NOTES: American Chemical Society August 17-21, Philadelphia)(Brief article)
September 13, 2008... A new way of making heparin, a common blood thinner, could protect against contamination. Mostly extracted from pig intestines, heparin is given to hospital patients to prevent blood clotting. Robert Linhardt of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute...

Juice boosts and blocks.(MEETING NOTES: American Chemical Society August 17-21, Philadelphia)(Grapefruit juice)(Brief article)
September 13, 2008... Grapefruit juice, known to boost the absorption of some drugs, can also have the opposite effect. David Bailey of the University of Western Ontario in London, Canada, described studies showing that grapefruit juice reduced patients' absorption...

Magpies check themselves out: reactions to mirror image suggest self-recognition.(Life)
September 13, 2008... Magpies sing a self-reflective tune that until now has gone unheard. When placed in front of a mirror, these songbirds realize they're looking at themselves, raising the possibility that they have independently evolved the brain power to...

Slave ants rebel.(Life)(Brief article)
September 13, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Tiny ants enslaved inside acorns in the United States may resist their captors with an army of killer nannies. Ants in the genus Temnothorax fall prey to a species that doesn't do its own housework. Instead the...

Dopamine fends off the zzzzz's: chemical helps sleep-deprived people stay awake.(Body & Brain)
September 13, 2008... A reward chemical in the brain is a real eye-opener. Dopamine, a feel-good brain chemical, helps keep sleep-deprived people awake, researchers from the National Institute on Drug Abuse show in the Aug. 20 Journal of Neuroscience. Dopamine...

Multiverse hosts stellar diversity: different laws still allow for stars, simulation suggests.(Atom & Cosmos)
September 13, 2008... FredAdams sees stars in the most unlikely places. His calculations suggest that, contrary to some previous claims, stars are not only common in our cosmos but are also ablaze in myriad other universes, where the laws of physics may be...

Icy rock takes long way home: cometlike body traveling back to inner Oort Cloud.(Atom & Cosmos)(2006 SQ372)(Brief article)
September 13, 2008... A lump of ice and rock now near Neptune apparently came in from the cold--the outermost limits of the solar system--and is on its way back out there. The roughly 40-kilometer-wide object, dubbed 2006 SQ372, may be the first known visitor...

Solid evidence about Earth's core: seismic waves confirm models of the planet's interior.(Earth)
September 13, 2008... Faint yet distinct ground motions recorded by a large network of seismic instruments in Japan in early 2006 are the strongest, most direct evidence that Earth's inner core is solid. On February 22, 2006, a magnitude-7 quake rocked...

Grazers align north to south: deer, cattle may sense Earth's magnetic field.(Earth)(Brief article)
September 13, 2008... Moss covers the north side of trees in a forest. But if you're lost in an open field, look to deer to point you in the right direction. Herds of grazing and resting deer and cattle tend to align themselves, on average, with Earth's magnetic...

Popular plastics chemical poses another threat: this time diabetes: bisphenol A blocks protective hormone in human tissue.(Environment)
September 13, 2008... The rap sheet for bisphenol A, a chemical commonly found in food and water containers, baby bottles and the lining of aluminum cans, keeps getting longer. But the chemical still has friends at the FDA. A new study examining the effects of...

Potent promise.
September 13, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Stem cells' powers of self-renewal, immortality and potential for medicine inspire those who study them. But progress toward understanding them has been slow--it took 20 years just to figure out how to grow embryonic...

It's likely that times are changing: a century ago, mathematician Hermann Minkowski famously merged space with time, establishing a new foundation for physics; today physicists are rethinking how the two should fit together.(ESSAY)
September 13, 2008... Einstein hated dice. Or at least he hated what dice represented: a world in which chance trumped fate. Einstein believed in a cosmic time that ticked into the future along a preordained route, each moment the inevitable product of the one...

The Gulf Stream: Tiny Plankton, Giant Bluefin, and the Amazing Story of the Powerful River in the Atlantic.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 13, 2008... The Gulf Stream: Tiny Plankton, Giant Bluefin, and the Amazing Story of the Powerful River in the Atlantic Stan Ulanski The Gulf Stream, dramatized by painter Winslow Homer, has had many admirers ranging from Juan Ponce de Leon, who...

Central Park in the Dark: More Mysteries of Urban Wildlife.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 13, 2008... Central Park in the Dark: More Mysteries of Urban Wildlife Marie Winn Marie Winn's tale of adventures in Central Park begins with darkness. She explores the cultural and literary associations between night and death, and the backstory...

SN bookshelf.(science books)(Book review)
September 13, 2008... Dire Predictions: Understanding Global Warming Michael E. Mann and Lee R. Kump [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] This user-friendly guide to climate change illustrates key concepts with plenty of graphics. DK Publishing, 2008, 208 p.,...

Disturbing numbers.(Feedback)(Letter to the editor)
September 13, 2008... I found the "Sizing up science" Science Stat (SN: 8/2/08, p. 4) somewhat disconcerting with regard to the opinion about medicine. Basic medical research, in which ties to pharmaceutical companies and the like are not limited, maybe "scientific"...

Seeing within.(Feedback)(Letter to the editor)
September 13, 2008... I was confused by the article on the use of Raman spectroscopy to detect tumors ("Insightful light," SN: 8/2/08, p. 22). The article implied that the tumors were internal, but unless the tumor is on or near the surface so the laser light can...

It's in the timing.(Feedback)(Letter to the editor)
September 13, 2008... I enjoyed reading "Decoding the quantum mystery" (SN: 8/2/08, p. 25), but two things struck me as unusual. Both were timely comments that showed the article was not written last December, edited in February, approved in April and printed in...

Eugene Spafford: protecting the Internet from the criminal element.(COMMENT)(Interview)
September 13, 2008... Eugene Spafford is executive director of Purdue University's Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security, one of the world's leading centers for information security. His research focuses on issues related to...

Hubble's repair sets stage for telescope anniversary.
September 27, 2008... Next year astronomers will celebrate the International Year of Astronomy, commemorating the 400th anniversary of Galileo's original use of the telescope to study the skies. It might just as well have been designated the International Year of...

Scientific observations.(Brief article)
September 27, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] "Where there are natural resources in Africa, the rush to exploit them is at a pace that no one ever dreamt possible.... The value of this announcement of this large population is, hopefully, people will realize this...

Science past: September 27, 1958.(Brief article)
September 27, 2008... PARKINSON'S DISEASE NO LONGER INCURABLE--Parkinsonism, or shaking palsy, is no longer a hopeless, progressive, incurable disease. A five-year follow-up study of 700 brain operations for parkinsonism revealed that 80% of the properly selected...

Science future.(Brief article)(Calendar)
September 27, 2008... October 3 Grid Fest at CERN in Geneva marks LHC's computing grid going live. Visit Icg.web.cern. ch/LCG/Ihcgridfest October 12-18 Earth Science Week 2008, sponsored by the American Geological institute, celebrates "No Child Left...

Earth.(Brief article)
September 27, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Studying decades of satellite data, a group of researchers found that the winds in already fierce storms, such as the strongest hurricanes, have actually strengthened in the past three decades.

Atom & cosmos.(Brief article)
September 27, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The European Space Agency's Rosetta craft made the first up close visit to a main-belt asteroid, 2867 Steins, on September 5. Images reveal a diamond shape with many craters.

Archives.(SN Online: www.sciencenews.org)
September 27, 2008... Read the Digital Edition of past print issues by clicking "Archives" on the upper right corner of the Science News website.

The (-est).(Brief article)
September 27, 2008... The great white shark (Carcharodon carcharias) doesn't let its cartilaginous jaws hold it back. The predator can chomp with a force of 18,000 newtons, giving it the strongest bite of any living species, scientist say. The findings, which come...

Science stats: green versus greenbacks.(SCIENCE NOTEBOOK)
September 27, 2008... Public stated priorities for environmental protection versus Economic growth in the United States from 1984 to 2007 [GRAPHIC OMITTED]

Creating new nerve cells makes sense for the brain: neurogenesis seems to aid memory, depression drugs.
September 27, 2008... Most of the brain does fine with its original brain cells, but parts involved in smelling and remembering sometimes need new recruits. In mice, new neurons are needed to remember mazes and keep scent-sensing organs plump (but aren't...

Pamela spots the dark stuff, maybe: orbiting observatory records excessive positron production.(Atom & Cosmos)
September 27, 2008... Cosmologists are agog about the possibility that an orbiting observatory may have discovered particles of dark matter--the invisible material that researchers believe makes up most of the mass of the universe. At two meetings in August,...

Black hole, in detail.(Brief article)
September 27, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] An array of radio telescopes has given astronomers their closest look yet at the Milky Way galaxy's center, depicted in this illustration. Yellow and red indicate emissions from Sagittarius A*. This bright, widely...

Galaxy cluster outweighs neighbors: distant find could support the existence of dark energy.(Brief article)
September 27, 2008... A new cosmic crowd has captured the heavyweight title for galaxy clusters discovered deep in the universe. The record-breaker sits billions of light-years from Earth and has about a thousand times the mass of the Milky Way, astronomers report...

Proton has a strange cousin: Fermilab finds new particle predicted by standard model.
September 27, 2008... Physicists have found a new heavy cousin of the proton hiding in a pile of data at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Ill. The new particle, long predicted to exist, is made of a bottom quark--the second-heaviest of all...

Path to math: math ability may be related to ingrained number sense.(Brief article)
September 27, 2008... Count on evolution to play favorites. When it comes to math, some kids may start with an inherent advantage. Some 14-year-olds deftly estimate approximate quantities without counting, whereas others do so with moderate or limited success, a...

Blindfolded babies show ability to learn how others see the world: personal experience leads to social thinking in 1-year-olds.
September 27, 2008... Infants make sense of the social world from the inside out. By age 1, kids rapidly incorporate visual experiences into a framework for understanding what other people can or can't see, a new study finds. Personal experience enables social...

Study evaluates kids' therapies: most trauma treatments lack scientific support.
September 27, 2008... There's good news and, not surprisingly, bad news for children and teenagers grappling with the psychological aftermath of trauma. On the up side, research shows that cognitive-behavioral therapy eases post-traumatic stress disorder and other...

Excavators find honey of a discovery: Israeli site yields oldest known example of beekeeping.(Brief article)
September 27, 2008... The Bible refers to ancient Israel as the "land flowing with milk and honey," so it's fitting that one of its towns milked honey for all it was worth. Scientists have unearthed the remains of a beekeeping operation at a nearly 3,000-year-old...

To bond or not to bond may depend on common hormone gene variant: vasopressin receptor may contribute to commitment phobia.
September 27, 2008... There's news for women who want a man who bonds rather than a James Bond: Scientists have identified a genetic variation that appears to weaken a man's ability to emotionally attach to one partner. The study, published online September 2 in...

Eye protection.(Brief article)
September 27, 2008... A gene variant may guard against a common, blinding eye disease. The gene, TLR3, may play a pivotal role in the dry form of age-related macular degeneration, the leading cause of blindness in the elderly. The new finding, reported online August...

Amniotic infection.(Brief article)
September 27, 2008... The amniotic sac that envelops the fetus during pregnancy harbors never-before-seen pathogenic microbes, Daniel DiGiulio of Stanford University and colleagues report online August 26 in PLoS ONE. In the amniotic fluid of 166 pregnant women, the...

Cancer-calcium connection.(Brief article)
September 27, 2008... Even a slight excess of calcium in the blood may increase a man's risk of developing lethal prostate cancer, researchers report in the September Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention. Of 2,814 men participating in a long-term health...

Gene activity makes the difference in development of human qualities: 'junk DNA' helps to distinguish people from other primates.
September 27, 2008... Genes alone don't make the man--after all, humans and chimps share roughly 98 percent of their DNA. But where, when and how much genes are turned on may be essential in setting people apart from other primates. A stretch of human DNA...

Thank mom, dad for extra years: study identifies gene variant that extends people's lives.
September 27, 2008... Life's just not fair. Some lucky people are born with a gene variant that makes them almost three times more likely to live to be 95, new research suggests. On average they're healthier, too. The gene, FOXO3A, is the second that's been...

Quantum physics may offer clues to solving prime number problem: electron energy levels linked to Riemann hypothesis.(Numbers)
September 27, 2008... If two physicists are right, a single electron might know more about numbers than all of the world's mathematicians. In an upcoming Physical Review Letters, the researchers hint that the dynamics of an electron can embody the solution to the...

Sting operation: scientists use bees and wasps to sniff out the ellicit and the dangerous.
September 27, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] It's the ultimate way to pull off a sting: Teach a group of ordinary honeybees to ignore flowers and, instead, focus on vapors from explosives used in bombs. Then send the bees off in teams to sniff out terrorists....

Breaking the barrier: a technique combining ultrasound pulses with microbubbles may help scientists move therapeutic drugs across the brain's protective divide.
September 27, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] A blog entry on the Sussex Amateur Brain Surgery Club's website boasts that "these days, brain surgery is very much the preserve of professional surgeons, but we at the Amateur Brain Surgery Club believe that anyone...

Last call: the final mission to the Hubble Space Telescope, set for early October, could radically transform the observatory, but the crew faces some special challenges.(Cover story)
September 27, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Loosening a half-inch screw may not sound like a job for a rocket scientist. But now imagine performing that task 32 times with your hand inside a pressurized glove so stiff it's hard to bend your fingers, let...

The Brightest Stars: Discovering the Universe through the Sky's Most Brilliant Stars.(BOOKSHELF)(Brief article)(Book review)
September 27, 2008... The Brightest Stars: Discovering the Universe through the Sky's Most Brilliant Stars Fred Schaaf [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Facts and legends about the 21 brightest stars in the night sky. John Wiley & Sons Inc., 2008, 281 p., $19.95....

Coal River.(BOOKSHELF)(Brief article)(Book review)
September 27, 2008... Coal River Michael Shnayerson [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] A Vanity Fair journalist exposes the ongoing battle between West Virginia activists and the company whose mountaintop mining threatens their homeland. Farrar, Straus and Giroux,...

Hyping Health Risks: Environmental Hazards in Daily Life and the Science of Epidemiology.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 27, 2008... Hyping Health Risks: Environmental Hazards in Daily Life and the Science of Epidemiology Geoffrey C. Kabat [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Health scares come and go, but they often have a tenuous scientific basis. Kabat, a cancer...

A climate tipping point.(FEEDBACK)(Letter to the editor)
September 27, 2008... In Janet Raloff's article "Forest invades tundra" (SN: 7/5/08, p. 25), there seems to be a paradox. Raloff says that the albedo from normal snow coverage of the tundra "helps maintain the region's chilly temperatures," implying that the...

Go for the gold.(FEEDBACK)(Letter to the editor)
September 27, 2008... The article "Finding the golden genes" (SN: 8/2/08, p. 16) makes it sound like gene boosting is horrible and focuses entirely on those who wish to cheat in an athletic competition. Really, this is great news. I don't want to win the Olympics; I...

Super bonding.(FEEDBACK)(hydrogen bonds)(Letter to the editor)(Brief article)
September 27, 2008... In "Small, but super" (SN: 6/21/08, p. 14), models of the superatoms are shown. I have a question on the first model (A14H7). You show hydrogen with two bonds. How can it have two single bonds with only one electron? Skip Hackett, Tampa,...

Gender in the classroom.(FEEDBACK)(Letter to the editor)
September 27, 2008... Regarding "Girls could give preschool boys learning boost" (SN: 7/19/08, p. 14), I am wondering if any difference among the boys would have been seen had the preschool teachers been male. Elizabeth Oscanyan, Philomont, Va. This is an...

Unseen whales.(FEEDBACK)(Letter to the editor)
September 27, 2008... The article "Stranded: A whale of a mystery" (SN: 7/19/08, p. 22) was disappointing because the tone and quotes implied that the whales found stranded represent the totality of the problem. For example, "We're talking about five animals a...

Look at them go.(FEEDBACK)(Letter to the editor)
September 27, 2008... Regarding "Built for speed" (SN: 8/16/08, p. 14), my wife and I were on a cruise ship leaving Glacier Bay in 2003. I had my GPS set on miles per hour. Here is an excerpt from my trip journal: July 17, 2003. It's almost 4 p.m., and we leave...

David Michaels: corporate campaigns manufacture scientific doubt.(COMMENT)(Interview)
September 27, 2008... In Doubt Is Their Product, published in April, epidemiologist David Michaels describes the growing corporate practice of "manufacturing" scientific uncertainty to thwart regulation of products that appear to pose risks. Michaels encountered the...