USA TODAY articles from June 2003

USA TODAY archives from June 2003

Do we want to live to 140? (Bioethics).(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... Faculty members from Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, have called for a public dialogue about the social implications of antiaging research. Specifically, they urge the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to take "the lead in...

Bracing for another battle with West Nile virus. (Pest Control).(includes 10 tips to avoid mosquito bites and infection )
June 1, 2003... Experts predicting another summer of increasing cases of the West Nile virus, including more fatalities, say a combination of preventive methods is the best way to combat the mosquito-borne disease. Kimberly Thompson, a specialist in risk...

A patient one day may be able to drop off some cells at the doctor's office and wait while a machine manufactures a new organ. (Science Scene).(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... A patient one day may be able to drop off some cells at the doctor's office and wait while a machine manufactures a new organ, Vladamir Miranov, a surgeon and tissue engineer, told the World Future Society, Bethesda, Md. "Operating like a...

A mechanism from within could explain why very young brain cells seem to turn a deaf ear to one another. (Science Scene).(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... A mechanism from within could explain why very young brain cells seem to turn a deaf ear to one another, contends cognitive scientist Guosong Liu, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge. The human brain has roughly 10 trillion nerve...

Vanishing coastlines might not be the only peril in a global-warming world. (Science Scene).(migration of disease carrying Asian tiger mosquitoes )(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... Vanishing coastlines might not be the only peril in a global-warming world. Disease-carrying Asian tiger mosquitoes may find the hotter temperatures to their liking and show up in places they've never been seen before, warns Barry Alto, a...

Traveling to Mars could become more feasible and less costly thanks to microchannel process technology. (Science Scene).(Pacific Northwest National Laboratory develops process to covert carbon dioxide into propellant fuel)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... Traveling to Mars could become more feasible and less costly thanks to microchannel process technology developed by engineers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, Wash. They are developing a lightweight micro chemical processing...

A self-sustaining environment for future space colonies is being explored by researchers at Purdue University. (Science Scene).(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... A self-sustaining environment for future space colonies is being explored by researchers at Purdue University, West Lafayette, Ind., at the behest of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Residents will grow their own crops and...

Overfishing and overuse of coastal regions have severely damaged marine habitats. (Science Scene).(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... Overfishing and overuse of coastal regions have severely damaged marine habitats, and new socioeconomic and ecological strategies are urgently needed to manage fisheries sustainably and preserve marine resources, argues Stanford (Calif.)...

The need to harvest trees for wood or pulp could be eliminated. (Science Scene).(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... The need to harvest trees for wood or pulp could be eliminated, claim researchers at the University of Texas at Austin. They maintain that the discovery of cellulose biosynthesis in nine species of cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae, may be the...

More than 200 plants and shrubs have been identified as poisonous to dogs and cats. (Science Scene).(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... More than 200 plants and shrubs have been identified as poisonous to dogs and cats, according to poison control centers throughout the U.S. and Canada. The potentially deadly foliage includes asparagus fern, chrysanthemums, daffodils,...

Worm's social feeding linked to human obesity. (Biodiversity).
June 1, 2003... Scientists at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas and the University of California, San Francisco, have shown that the feeding behavior in worms is controlled by neurons that detect adverse or stressful conditions. The...

Can mechanical dogs be seniors' best friends? (Robotics).
June 1, 2003... Researchers are placing robotic dogs in the homes of isolated senior citizens to determine whether the mechanical substitutes, like pets, can improve the quality of life for humans. Alan Beck, director of the Center for the Human-Animal Bond in...

Women can "smell" thin to men. (Aroma).(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... A decade-long study conducted by the Smell & Taste Treatment and Research Foundation in Chicago found that men perceived women to be 12 pounds lighter when they were wearing a pleasant, floral-spicy perfume. Alan R. Hirsch, lead investigator,...

Malaria toxin made to turn on itself. (Immunology).(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... By mimicking a toxin produced by the most-lethal malaria parasite, scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, and in Australia report that they have created a vaccine that is extremely effective in mice. The scientists...

Capturing the HIV virus on film. (Cellular Biology).
June 1, 2003... In stunning color images using time-lapse microscopy, scientists at the University of Illinois at Chicago for the first time have captured the very earliest stages of HIV infection in living cells. The researchers filmed individual HIV...

Specific gene linked to aggression. (Neuroscience).
June 1, 2003... Researchers at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, report finding a gene that is essential for normal levels of anxiety and aggression. Calling it the Pet-1 gene, scientists at the School of Medicine's Department of Neurosciences...

Tiny molecules control life processes. (Microbiology).
June 1, 2003... Researchers at Oregon State University, Corvallis, have made a very important advance in the understanding of "micro-RNA" molecules, which are tiny bits of genetic material that were literally unknown 10 years ago, but now represent one of the...

Fruit fly gene combats wasting disorder. (Molecular Biology).
June 1, 2003... A gene regulating muscle formation in fruit flies could play a vitally important role in a wasting disorder in humans, researchers at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas have discovered. "This study illustrates the way...

Plastics may cause birth defects. (Genetics).
June 1, 2003... Disturbing new evidence suggesting that environmental exposure to a ubiquitous substance may cause chromosomally abnormal pregnancies has been found by researchers at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio. They have discovered that...

Polymers promote nerve cell growth. (Regeneration).(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... Using microscale channels cut in ultrathin biodegradable polymers, Surya Mallapragada, a chemical engineering professor at Iowa State University, Ames, and an associate in materials chemistry at the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory,...

Onscreen cursor controlled by brain. (Computers).
June 1, 2003... It is the stuff of science fiction: Researchers at Brown University, Providence, R.I., have used a tiny array of electrodes to record, interpret, and reconstruct the brain activity that controls hand movement, and they have demonstrated that...

Multiple "guards" foil hackers. (Software).
June 1, 2003... Hackers who try to use or copy software illegally may soon find a sticky web waiting to trap them. It's not the World Wide Web. Instead, it's a new approach under development at Purdue University, West Lafayette, Ind., designed to protect...

Hormone regulates plant growth. (Vegetation).(auxin )
June 1, 2003... The mechanism by which a key hormone called auxin regulates the growth and development of plants by promoting the degradation of repressor proteins has been discovered by researchers at The University of Texas at Austin. This eventually could...

Haptics lets computer users "feel". (Virtual Reality).
June 1, 2003... Anyone who thinks a pinch means they aren't dreaming hasn't tried haptics. J. Kenneth Salisbury Jr., research professor of computer science and surgery, Stanford (Calif.) University, develops tools that allow people to touch--poke, squeeze,...

More information is attainable faster. (Communication).
June 1, 2003... A message-passing library that makes it possible to extract optimum performance from both workstation and personal computer clusters, as well as from large massively parallel supercomputers, has been developed by researchers at the U.S....

Photosynthesis in a beaker. (Chemistry).(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... In a step toward creating energy from sunlight, as plants do, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, have invented a compound that produces hydrogen gas with the help of a catalyst and a zap of light. Professor of...

Plastics vs. chemicals as plant growth regulators. (Botany).
June 1, 2003... To help commercial nurseries keep plants uniform in size, botanists at the University of Florida, Gainesville, are testing colored plastic films that filter out growth-promoting light waves. Sandy Wilson, an assistant professor of environmental...

Weed produces "safe" poison. (Herbicides).
June 1, 2003... Scientists have speculated for decades that spotted knapweed is able to spread over large areas because of a secret weapon--an ability to release a chemical that kills surrounding plants. Until now, they have never been able to put their thumb...

Do plants know math? (Horticulture).
June 1, 2003... For more than three centuries, botanists and mathematicians have marveled at the complex and beautiful spiral patterns that form as plants develop. As they generate leaves around a stem, or seeds or flowers in a blossom, plants as diverse as...

Online job seekers must search longer. (Internet).
June 1, 2003... So much for the benefits of technology. Internet-addicted job seekers may be partly to blame for the fact that the unemployed are taking 23% longer to find a new position than it took during the last recession, when the "benefits" of online job...

Sweating the small stuff matters. (Metallurgy).(microstructures)
June 1, 2003... In an effort to understand better how microstructures develop in materials, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames (Iowa) Laboratory are investigating certain properties that exist in metals at the interface between the liquid and...

Immobilized enzymes can check bioterrorism. (Materials).
June 1, 2003... Scientists at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, Wash., have successfully immobilized enzymes while simultaneously enhancing their activity and stability, opening up new possibilities for using tailored...

Creating reversible "smart surfaces". (Engineering).(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, engineers and colleagues from the University of California, Berkeley, report a unique design of a "smart surface" that can reversibly switch properties in response to an external stimulus. The...

New technology provides more power. (Full Cells).
June 1, 2003... Two microfluidic fuel cells developed at Brown University, Providence, R.I., may help make long-running medical implants a reality, as they offer features sought after by manufacturers to provide long-term power for medical devices such as...

Sorting and mixing pigs not beneficial. (Animal Husbandry).
June 1, 2003... For pork producers, nothing boats spending less time in the barn, unless it's making a little mom money at market time. University of Nebraska, Lincoln, research shows that leaving pigs in the same pen instead of sorting and mixing lightweight...

Establishing standards for aquarium trade. (Marine Biology).
June 1, 2003... Cyanide poisoning may be the stuff of murder mysteries, but it seems an unlikely way for tropical fish or coral reefs to die. That is what can happen, though, when divers in Southeast Asia use cyanide to capture valuable fish for sale to the...

Biological activity found 1,000 feet below surface. (Oceanography).
June 1, 2003... An abundance of microbial life has been discovered deep beneath the ocean floor in ancient basalt that forms part of the Earth's crust, in research that continues to expand the realm of seemingly hostile or remote environments in which living...

Global rate reaches historic proportions. (Extinction).(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... Half of all living bird and mammal species will be gone within 200 or 300 years, according to Donald A. Levin, a botany professor at The University of Texas at Austin. Although the extinction of various species is a natural phenomenon, the rate...

Golf course "hazard" filters runoff pollution. (Wetlands).
June 1, 2003... Golfers may see it as just another water hazard, but, in fact, the constructed wetlands on Purdue University's Kampen Course, West Lafayette, Ind., prevent potential pollutants from damaging the environment. Moreover, the constructed wetlands'...

Cosmic tango in outer space. (Solar System).(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... Gamma-ray bursts and powerful explosions occurring in distant parts of the universe may be the energetic offspring of a cosmic dance between black holes and their dance-partner stars, claim scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of...

Radio-loud quasars and blazars. (Astronomy).(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... Researchers at The University of Texas at Austin have found new evidence to suggest that all radio-loud quasars may be blazars and that the differences between them may be related to the angle from which they are viewed. Following a...

Radiation may affect planetary evolution. (Universe).
June 1, 2003... Jolts of radiation from space may affect biological and atmospheric evolution on planets in the solar system and those orbiting other stars, according to calculations by a team of astronomers at The University of Texas at Austin. Bursts of...

Rising temperatures spur biological chaos. (Climate).
June 1, 2003... Global warming is having a significant impact on hundreds of plant and animal species around the world, although the most-dramatic effects may not be felt for decades, according to a Stanford (Calif.) University study. "Birds are laying eggs...

Finding poultry defects before processing. (Screening).
June 1, 2003... Researchers believe they are on the edge of a breakthrough, but they don't want to count their chickens before they're processed. At Gold Kist's poultry processing plant in Carrollton, Ga., a machine vision system developed at the Georgia Tech...

New devices are inexpensive, powerful. (Detection).(gas detectors)
June 1, 2003... A new type of sensor based on porous silicon and a unique metallization process could offer enhanced sensitivity, reduced power demands, and lower cost compared to existing technologies for detecting gaseous compounds important in...

Remote sensing on the range. (Monitoring).
June 1, 2003... Ranchers, farmers, loggers, and recreationalists throughout the nation's western region are being asked to share rangelands. With more groups using them, it has become increasingly important to monitor the land to maintain it and to guard...

U.S. unprepared for disease outbreak. (Bioterrorism).
June 1, 2003... More than 140,000,000 people fly into the U.S. from overseas every year. Most flights take fewer than 24 hours--far less than the 12-day incubation period for smallpox. The upshot? A contagious disease outbreak overseas--such as SARS--whether...