February 26th, 2000
issue

  • Marrow Can Hide Breast Cancer Cells
    Breast cancer patients who have stray cancer cells in bone marrow are more likely to die of cancer or have a recurrence of cancer elsewhere in the body than are breast cancer patients not harboring such cells. (p. 132)
  • Shotgun approach bags the fruit fly genome
    Scientists announced the completion of the Drosophila genome-sequencing project. (p. 132)
  • New frog-killing disease may not be so new
    The skin disease that savaged amphibians in remote wildernesses in the 1990s has been linked to outbreaks in the 1970s. (p. 133)
  • Vase shows that ancients dug fossils, too
    A painting on an ancient Corinthian vase may be the first record of a fossil find. (p. 133)
  • Manhandled molecules, midget memories
    A thick coating of organic chemicals can record information at densities potentially a million times greater than is possible with current compact disk technology. (p. 134)
  • Power plants: Algae churn out hydrogen
    Green algae can produce hydrogen, a clean-burning fuel that could one day power pollution-free cars. (p. 134)
  • Votes cast for and against the WIMP factor
    Physicists this week duked it out over a bunch of WIMPs, elementary particles that—if they exist—could solve a decades-old mystery in cosmology and help unify the four fundamental forces of nature. (p. 135)
  • Survey raises issue of isolated Web users
    A controversial study suggests that heavy users of the Internet become socially isolated. (p. 135)
  • Hear, Hear
    A 14-year study of twin babies shows definitively for the first time that there's a link between middle ear infections and heredity. (p. 136)
  • Climate's Long-Lost Twin
    New geological evidence suggests that humans have started exploiting fossil fuels and altering Earth's atmosphere at precisely the moment when greenhouse gases could do the most damage to climate. (p. 138)
  • Genes to Grow On
    Researchers studying children with Williams syndrome say that the unusual condition emerges through a developmental process that's influenced but not predetermined by a genetic defect. (p. 142)
  • Treatment enigma for disturbed kids
    Two new studies offer conflicting views of the effectiveness of mental-health services for children and teenagers. (p. 141)
  • Anatomy of antisocial personality
    A disturbance in the brain's prefrontal cortex may either contribute to or result from a psychiatric condition called antisocial personality disorder. (p. 141)
  • A fair deal for housemates
    A new mathematical recipe for fair division allows people to resolve disputes over the splitting up of rent, goods, or even burdensome chores. (p. 141)
  • Packing spheres around a sphere
    A mathematician has proved that the optimal arrangement of 12 identical spheres around and touching a 13th is a highly symmetric pattern based on the 12-faced geometric shape known as the dodecahedron. (p. 141)
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