USA TODAY articles from June 2002

USA TODAY archives from June 2002

Tracking nuclear material worldwide. (Detection).
June 1, 2002... It take just a Jew kilograms of plutonium, and less than 20 kilograms of highly enriched uranium to make a nuclear bomb. According to a database compiled by researchers at Stanford (Calif.) University's Institute for International Studies...

Science scene.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2002... To tackle environmental issues, it just may take a challenge similar to Pres. John F. Kennedy's "man on the moon in a decade" declaration, maintains Robert Mason, director of the environmental studies program at Temple University, Philadelphia,...

Cutting cattle's methane emissions. (Atmosphere).(Brief Article)
June 1, 2002... A peacefully grazing herd of cattle doesn't tend to conjure up visions of global warming, but the environment, the producers' bottom line, and the animals all could benefit if cattle produced less methane, the second-most abundant greenhouse...

Using sludge to clean the air. (Emission Control).(Brief Article)
June 1, 2002... Paper mills produce sludge. They also give off toxic emissions containing oxides of nitrogen, including N[O.sub.x], a by-product of combustion. Researchers at the Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, have developed and patented a process...

New technology treats dairy wastes and odors. (Pollution).(Brief Article)
June 1, 2002... Technology developed by researchers at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) is transforming a waste lagoon into a waste treatment facility. The George DeRuyter Dairy in Outlook, Wash., has been outfitted with...

"Just add water" to get rid of trash faster. (Waste Management).(Brief Article)
June 1, 2002... Trash in a municipal landfill could decompose nearly 10 to 20 times faster than it normally does through a system that keeps the trash continually wet. Landfills are normally dry environments, and the lack of adequate moisture doesn't allow...

Effects will continue for a century, even if emissions are curbed now. (Global Warming).(Brief Article)
June 1, 2002... Although significant uncertainty remains regarding the amount et global warming that will occur over the next century or two, scientists agree that the trend will continue for the next 100 years even if fossil fuel consumption is dramatically...

Protecting nanotubes from static electricity. (Circuitry).(Brief Article)
June 1, 2002... Carbon nanotubes have the potential to be used for smaller and faster computer chips, but static electricity poses serious problems with nanoscale elements in a circuit. Static electricity has long been a problem for conventional chips and...

Electron beams boost nanotechnology. (Miniaturization).(Brief Article)
June 1, 2002... NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, Calif., has acquired one of the world's finest electron beam lithography systems, one that will allow researchers to work on the submolecular scale. For NASA, this means breakthroughs in...

Self-assembled tubes for electronic devices. (Nanotechnology).(Brief Article)
June 1, 2002... Tiny self-assembled tubes, about one-one thousandth the width of a grain of sand, may now be used as a scaffold to custom-build molecular wires and other components for use in nanometer-sized electronic devices, including some that could be...

Blue micro LEDs miniaturize displays. (Optics).(light-emitting diodes)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2002... Imagine being able to carry your computer in your pocket and view the screen through a pair of eyeglasses while listening to your quarter-sized CD. Imagine the military being able to detect the presence of biological chemicals in the air with...

Visualizing severe weather in 3-D. (Meteorology).(Virtual Geographic Information System,)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2002... A real-time, three-dimensional visualization system may help severe-weather researchers improve the timeliness and accuracy of forecasting the formation, path, and possible effects of storms. Researchers led by the Georgia Institute of...

Climate measuring goes global. (Monitoring).(Brief Article)
June 1, 2002... Scientists now have the capability to document atmospheric and climate change at locations nearly anywhere in the world, thanks to a mobile atmospheric monitoring system developed at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National...

Ice sheet melting key to sea level rise. (Antarctic).(Brief Article)
June 1, 2002... A massive and unusually abrupt rise in sea level about 14,200 years ago was caused by the partial collapse of ice sheets in Antarctica, researchers have found, solving a mystery scientists have been heatedly debating for more than a decade. In...

Is Europe about to freeze? (Climate).(Brief Article)
June 1, 2002... One of the odd possibilities that could emerge from global warming is that much of Europe, robbed of the ocean current patterns that help keep it warm, could rather abruptly enter a deep freeze and have a climate that more closely resembles...

Cyber age's impact on information. (Computers).(Brief Article)
June 1, 2002... A parallel universe is rapidly being created online, as experts differ on what we should expect from a fully networked world. "The onrushing Cyber Age has given newfound power to us all," author Carter Henderson told the World Future Society,...

More ways to go wireless in the future. (Communications).(Brief Article)
June 1, 2002... For years, teleconferencing, video, and e-mail have been advocated from the perspective of cost and efficiency. Following the events of Sept. 11, however, those business communications methods will be used for safety--as a way to avoid...

Pinpointing sources of computer chip dust. (Lasers).(Brief Article)
June 1, 2002... Engineers at Purdue University, West Lafayette, Ind., have demonstrated concepts that could eventually save computer chip manufacturers millions of dollars in downtime every year by using lasers to identify and pinpoint the sources of...

Teenage girls face dangers online. (Internet).(Brief Article)
June 1, 2002... When it comes to the Internet, teenage girls are extremely computer-savvy, but also emotionally vulnerable and disturbed by how frequently they are exposed to sexual content online, according to a study from the Girl Scout Research Institute...

Online tips for parents. (World of Science).(Brief Article)
June 1, 2002... The Internet is a fact of most preteen and teenage girls' lives today. Parents can and should play an active role helping their daughters navigate cyberspace. Here are some tips: 1. Talk to your daughter about safety rules for using the...

Was T-rex a slowpoke? (Paleontology).(Brief Article)
June 1, 2002... The king of the Cretaceous Era, Tyrannosaurrus rex stood on two powerful hind limbs and terrorized potential prey with its huge size and lethal jaws. The dinosaur was big and bad, but was it also fast? That has long been a topic of scientific...

Bleaching could help corals survive. (Marine Biology).(Brief Article)
June 1, 2002... The phenomenon of bleaching, in which reef-building corals lose their colorful algae and become white during times of stress, may actually allow some corals to adapt to global warming and other environmental change. A study by the Wildlife...

Spying on the sex lives of wild fish. (Reproduction).(Brief Article)
June 1, 2002... New insights into the reproductive behaviors of freshwater fish have been discovered by scientists who utilized genetic tools first developed for use in humans. By employing genetic fingerprinting techniques such as those used to identify...

Clay-based spray aids apple growers. (Agriculture).(Brief Article)
June 1, 2002... A harmless clay-based solution, sprayed on apple trees, can protect the fruit from some diseases and insect pests. Andrew Thomas, a research associate at the University of Missouri Southwest Center near Mt. Vernon, has tested a spray made of...

Helping wheat make better bread. (Genetic Engineering).(Brief Article)
June 1, 2002... Average wheat varieties could be given superior bread-making qualities, thanks to genetic technology developed at the University of Florida's Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, Gainesville. "Traditionally, the bread-making...

Transgenic crops can persist for generations. (Genetic Traits).(Brief Article)
June 1, 2002... Genetic traits passed from crops to their weedy relatives can persist for at least six generations, and probably much longer, according to an Ohio State University, Columbus, study conducted with radishes. This means genetic traits that are...

Plant genomics may double crop efficiency. (Horticulture).(Brief Article)
June 1, 2002... Environmental stresses such as frost, heat, and drought cause massive crop-yield losses each year--more, in fact, than those from insects and weeds. To combat such losses, Ray Bressan, professor of horticulture and director of Purdue...

Buoyancy causes volcanic rocks to rise. (Geology).(Brief Article)
June 1, 2002... A study of the Earth's mantle beneath the ocean near Iceland provides the most-convincing evidence yet that simple buoyancy of hot, partially molten rocks can play an important role in causing them to rise and erupt through the surface at...

Clean electric power from dirty coal. (Energy).(Brief Article)
June 1, 2002... As the nation scrambles to boost electric power generation capacity, researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames (Iowa) Laboratory may hold the key that would allow some of those power plants to burn high-sulfur, dirty coal cleanly. A...

Revolutionizing refrigerators. (Magnetics).(Brief Article)
June 1, 2002... Using materials developed at the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames (Iowa) Laboratory, researchers have successfully demonstrated the world's first room-temperature, permanent-magnet, magnetic refrigerator. Instead of ozone-depleting refrigerants...

Learning how neurons communicate. (Biochemistry).(Brief Article)
June 1, 2002... Researchers at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas have discovered a biochemical pathway that helps describe how neurons in the brain and spinal cord form their connections. "By learning how nerve fibers grow and form...

"Cold" laser beam improves arc welding. (Mechanical Engineering).(Brief Article)
June 1, 2002... While arc welding has been used for decades to join metal parts on everything from cars to boats to airplanes, the basic technology behind this multibillion-dollar industry has changed little since World War II. Now, though, engineers at Ohio...

An ocean on Jupiter's moon? (Planets).(Brief Article)
June 1, 2002... Acoustic techniques used by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, to explore the Arctic Ocean may help determine whether there is a vast liquid ocean under the ice blanketing Jupiter's moon, Europa. They suggest...

Government subsidies are needed. (Innovation).(Brief Article)
June 1, 2002... Fueled by a rapidly expanding supply of scientists and engineers, America's mighty economic engine powered the nation through more than a century of remarkable wealth creation. Yet, economist Paul Romer of the Stanford (Calif.) Graduate School...

Combined microscope aids cell understanding. (Imaging).(Brief Article)
June 1, 2002... By combining advances in two existing imaging technologies, scientists at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have created novel instrumentation that promises to improve the understanding of cells and has the...