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February 12th, 2000
issue

  • Researchers Probe Cell-Phone Effects
    Scientists are trying to find out whether biological changes associated with cell-phone use represent health risks. (p. 100)
  • Drugs order bacteria to commit suicide
    Seeking to explain how antibiotics work, scientists find a protein that commands bacteria to kill themselves. (p. 100)
  • Solar magnetism: Memories are made of this
    Despite all its upheavals, the sun's magnetic field has a built-in memory, allowing it to return to its original position and configuration. (p. 101)
  • R&D budget should ease biomed envy
    President Clinton's science budget for 2001 proposes to narrow a gap that's yawned in recent years between lusher funding for biomedicine and leaner support for the physical sciences. (p. 102)
  • Sleepyheads' brains veer from restful path
    Unusual patterns of brain activity appear in sleep-deprived volunteers trying to solve verbal and mathematical problems. (p. 103)
  • Stopping batteries from starting fires
    A new flame-retardant substance could make rechargeable lithium-ion batteries practical for powering electric vehicles. (p. 103)
  • Flight puts the fight back into crickets
    Researchers are just discovering what gamblers in China have known for centuries—flying can make a losing cricket fight again. (p. 104)
  • Ultracold molecules form inside superatom
    The formation of molecules within an ultracold gas of atoms called a Bose-Einstein condensate could be a step toward fluids in which molecules share the same quantum state. (p. 104)
  • Revved-Up Universe
    Astronomers are busy testing the seemingly bizarre notion that the expansion of the universe is accelerating. (p. 106)
  • AIDS drugs may cause bone loss
    Using X rays to measure bone density in HIV-infected men, researchers find a possible link between bone loss and long-term use of protease inhibitors. (p. 109)
  • HIV may date back to the 1930s
    Genetic analysis of the AIDS virus suggests it first infected humans in the first third of the 20th century. (p. 109)
  • One more reason to worry
    A single dose of the AIDS drug nevirapine, given to mothers to help prevent them from infecting their children during birth, may be enough to prod the virus to develop drug resistance. (p. 109)
  • Spectral atom rings in
    Electron waves can generate a phantom atom when a real atom is placed at the right spot inside an elliptical quantum corral, or loop of atoms, arranged on a surface. (p. 109)
  • Keeping Bugs from Pumping Drugs
    Researchers hope that attacking the machinery some microbes use to pump antimicrobial agents out of their cells may help deal with the increasing problem of drug resistance. (p. 110)
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Natural History of the Point Reyes Peninsula by Jules G. Evens
Univ. of California, 2008, 366 p., $24.95
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