More Stories from the March 18, 2000 issue
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Good Readers May Get Perceptual Lift
The ability to hear and see rapidly changing stimuli may underlie reading skills, raising the possibility of new approaches to reading instruction.
- Health & Medicine
Olfactory cells aid spine healing in rats
Injections of olfactory ensheathing glial cells from the brain help severed spinal cords heal in rats.
- Humans
Message in DNA tops Science Talent Search
A project on encrypting words within a strand of DNA won the top prize at the Intel Science Talent Search.
- Chemistry
Power cells find uses for fossil fuel
A new fuel cell that runs on hydrocarbons such as natural gas, butane, and diesel instead of hydrogen could be an efficient, practical way to generate power without pollution.
- Physics
Soft crystal shows off its many new facets
Experiments with a liquid crystal may confirm the 50-year-old prediction that a nearly unlimited number of facets of different orientations can simultaneously decorate a crystal surface.
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Tree pollination needs male-only rot
A fungus that attacks only the male flowers on the chempedak fruit tree seems to be the edible reward for pollinators—the first fungus discovered to play such a role in pollination.
- Astronomy
Spacecraft sounds out the sun’s hidden half
By detecting sound waves that have traveled through the sun, two physicists have for the first time found a way to view disturbances on the sun's hidden half, providing a glimpse of stormy weather patterns a week to 10 days before they come into view.
- Earth
Plants seen as unpredictable carbon sponge
Changing land-use practices—especially in forests, croplands, and fallow areas—appear to play a far bigger role than anticipated in determining how much carbon gets removed from the air by vegetation.
- Agriculture
Cocoa yields are mushrooming—downward
A mushroom epidemic in Brazilian cacao trees, which has cut the production of cacao by 25 percent in 5 years, may be treatable with another fungus.
- Agriculture
Apple pests stand up to antibiotics
Scientists are concerned about new forms of antibiotic resistance cropping up in fire blight—a deadly disease of apple trees.
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What’s learning to a grasshopper?
Learning the taste of nutritious food pays off in a boost to fitness, even for a grasshopper.
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Bacteria make locust-swarm signal
A pheromone that helps drive locusts into a swarm comes from bacteria in their gut.
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Over there! Eat them instead!
An ant will ignore a single golden egg bug and attack a mating pair, a choice that may explain why singles hang around pairs.
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Wash that mouth out with bacteria!
Genetically engineered bacteria may stop tooth decay by replacing the ones in the mouth that destroy tooth enamel.
- Earth
Undersea volcano: Heard but not seen
The search is on for an undersea eruption near the Japanese volcanic island chain.
- Earth
Ice age forest spruces up ecology record
Scientists have recently discovered a 10,000-year-old forest buried in the sand in Michigan.
- Physics
Photon-in-a-box slings atom into orbit
A single photon confined to a tiny, mirror-lined cavity becomes electrically strong enough to swing an atom in loops.
- Physics
Neon gives healthy glow to reactor
Preferring neon to nicotine, magnetic-fusion reactors called tokamaks get a performance boost from puffs of the noble gas.
- Health & Medicine
Chocolate Hearts
Preliminary studies indicate that moderate consumption of chocolate products may offer cardiovascular benefits.
- Chemistry
Molecules Leave Their Mark
A material etched with tiny, carefully shaped pores can act like an artificial enzyme, cell membrane, or receptor.
