News of the Week:

Yolks of Yore: Oldest Animals Found

Fossilized embryos, found in 570-million-year-old Chinese rocks, provide the earliest record of animal life.

Sources:

Andrew H. Knoll
Harvard University
Botanical Museum
26 Oxford Street
Cambridge, MA 02138

Chia-Wei Li
National Tsing Hua University
Department of Life Science
Heinchu, Taiwan
China

Did water carve canyon on Mars?

The first image of a dried-up channel at the bottom of the canyon Nanedi Vallis provides evidence that a steady source of water once flowed on Mars.

Sources:

Michael C. Malin
Malin Space Science Systems
P.O. Box 910148
San Diego, CA 92191-0148

Beavers bite trees, benefit baby beetles

When beavers cut down cottonwood trees, they indirectly help cottonwood leaf beetles grow faster and taste nastier.

Sources:

Mark D. Hunter
University of Georgia
Institute of Ecology
Athens, GA 30602-2202

Gregory D. Martinsen
Northern Arizona University
Department of Biological Sciences
P.O. Box 5640
Flagstaff, AZ 86011

J. Timothy Wootton
Northern Arizona University
Department of Ecology and Evolution
1101 East 57th Street
Chicago, IL 60637

How low will we go in fishing for dinner?

Fisheries are propping up yields by harvesting stocks that are increasingly lower down the marine food chain.

Sources:

International Year of the Ocean
United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization
Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission
1 rue Miollis
75732 Paris Cedex 15
France
E-mail: i.oliounine@unesco.org
Web site: http://ioc.unesco.org/iyo

Daniel Pauly
University of British Columbia
Fisheries Center
2204 Main Mall
Vancouver, British Columbia V6T 1Z4
Canada

Sea Web
1731 Connecticut Avenue, N.W., 4th Floor
Washington, DC 20009
E-mail: seaweb@seaweb.org
Web site: http://www.seaweb.org

Protein switch curls bacterial propellers

When a bacterium throws its motors into reverse, its flagella change the structure of their protein components.

Sources:

David L.D. Caspar
Florida State University
Institute of Molecular Biophysics
Tallahassee, FL 32306-4380
Web site: http://www.sb.fsu.edu/~caspar/

Keiichi Namba
Matsushita Electric Industrial Company
International Institute for Advanced Research
3-4 Hikariclai
Seika 619-02
Japan

New Budget Provides Lift for Science

The President's proposed 1999 budget offers significant increases in funding for many, but not all, science agencies.

Sources:

Albert H. Teich
American Association for the Advancement of Science
Science Policy Programs
1200 New York Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20005
Web site: http://www.aaas.org/spp/dspp/dspp.htm

Astronomy
Mysteries of a massive star

The star Eta Carinae has unexpectedly stopped emitting X rays, which had reached an unprecedented peak.

Sources:

Kris Davidson
University of Minnesota
Department of Astronomy
116 Church Street, S.E.
Minneapolis, MN 55455

Kazunori Ishibashi
University of Minnesota
Department of Astronomy
116 Church Street, S.E.
Minneapolis, MN 55455

Asteroid impact: Beware the tsunami

An asteroid landing in the middle of the ocean has a greater potential for destruction than an asteroid landing on solid ground.

Sources:

Jack G. Hills
Los Alamos National Laboratory
Theoretical Division
T-6, Mail Stop Code B288
Los Alamos, NM 87545

Chemistry
Seeing how much stuff sticks to snow

Measuring the total surface area of a volume of snow could help improve determinations of the amount of pollution picked up from the air.

Sources:

John T. Hoff
University of Waterloo
Department of Earth Sciences
Waterloo Centre for Groundwater Research
Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3G1
Canada

Cocaine-laced locks tell hairy tales

Pressurized carbon dioxide can selectively dissolve cocaine out of hair as part of a drug-testing process.

Sources:

Janet F. Morrison
Trinity College
Department of Chemistry
300 Summit Street
Hartford, CT 06106

 

Behavior
Blinded by beauty

Extremely handsome people are often mistakenly rated as healthier than their peers.

Sources:

S. Michael Kalick
University of Massachusetts
Psychology Department
100 Morrissey Boulevard
Boston, MA 02125

Genetic hint of psychosis

An as-yet-unspecified gene appears to contribute to the psychotic symptoms that characterize schizophrenia.

Sources:

Linda M. Brzustowicz
Rutgers University
Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience
197 University Avenue
Newark, NJ 07102

Paleontology
'Feathered' dinosaur makes debut

Chinese scientists describe a dinosaur covered with downy fibers.

Sources:

Pei-ji Chen
Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology
Academia Sinica
39 East Beijing Road
Nanjing 210008
People's Republic of China

Another dinosaur sells for millions

A North Carolina museum pays $3 million for a rare dinosaur skeleton.

Sources:

A. Allen Graffham
Geological Enterprises
P.O. Box 996
Ardmore, OK 73042

Dale Russell
North Carolina State Museum of Natural Sciences
Bicentennial Plaza
P.O. Box 29555
Raleigh, NC 27626

Physics
Liquid Bose-Einstein condensate found

A new analysis of data obtained years ago confirms a decades-old suspicion that a measurable fraction of the atoms in liquid helium form a Bose-Einstein condensate.

Sources:

Allan Griffin
University of Toronto
Department of Physics
Toronto, ON M5S 1A7
Canada

Adrian F.G. Wyatt
University of Exeter
Department of Physics
Exeter EX4 4QL
United Kingdom

Whither heapeth the dancing sands?

A computer model has predicted the patterns formed by granular materials on vibrating surfaces.

Sources:

Harry L. Swinney
University of Texas
Department of Physics
Center for Nonlinear Dynamics
Austin, TX 78712

Articles:

Staging Germ Warfare in Foods

Science harnesses bacteria to fend off food poisoning and spoilage

An unusual group of bacterial proteins that can kill harmful germs may be added to foods or their packages.

Sources:

Barrie Davidson
University of Melbourne
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Parkville
Victoria 3052
Australia
E-mail: bed@biochemistry.unimelb.edu.au
Web site: http://128.250.58.34/staff/bed.htm

David S. Edmark
University of Arkansas
Food Safety Consortium
110 Agriculture Building
Fayetteville, AR 72701
E-mail: dedmark@comp.uark.edu
Web site: http://www.uark.edu/depts.fsc

Michael Johnson
University of Arkansas
Department of Food Science
272 Young Avenue
Fayetteville, AR 72704

Todd R. Klaenhammer
North Carolina State University
Department of Food Science
Box 7624
Raleigh, NC 27695-7624

John B. Luchansky
Food Research Institute
Food Microbiology & Toxicology
1925 Willow Drive
Madison, WI 53706-1187

Thomas J. Montville
Rutgers University
Cook College
Department of Food Science
65 Dudley Road
New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8520

Peter M. Muriana
Oklahoma State University
Department of Food Microbiology
109 food technology center
Stillwater, OK 74078-6055

Light from the Early Universe

Discerning patterns in galaxies from long ago

After finding some 440 galaxies so distant that the light they emit takes 12 billion years to reach Earth, astronomers are beginning to identify patterns in the distribution of visible matter in the early universe.

Sources:

J. Richard Bond
University of Toronto
Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics
McLennan Physical Laboratories
Toronto, ON M5S 1AF
Canada

Michael A.K. Gross
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Mail Stop Code 931
Greenbelt, MD 20711

Charles C. Steidel
California Institute of Technology
Palomar Observatory
Caltech 105-24
Pasadena, CA 91125

References

Table of Contents - 2/7/98

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copyright 1998
Science Service