More Stories from the February 23, 2002 issue
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Infants emerge as picky imitators
By the age of 14 months, babies display a feel for evaluating the sensibility of an adult's behavior and either imitating the means to a goal or opting for a simpler way to achieve the same result.
- Planetary Science
Galileo at Jupiter: The goodbye tour
After more than 6 years spent touring Jupiter and its four largest moons, the Galileo spacecraft’s mission is beginning to wind down.
- Paleontology
Dinosaur tracks show walking and running
A single trail of dinosaur footprints found in a British limestone quarry preserves a record of two different walking styles in the same animal, a tantalizing clue that some types of lumbering, bipedal dinosaurs could also run if the need arose.
- Earth
Shuttle yields detailed, 3-D atlas
NASA scientists and Defense Department mapmakers are assembling billions of radar measurements made from the space shuttle Endeavour to produce what they say will be the world’s best topographic map.
- Physics
A new way to stick it to flies
Researchers have measured the amount of static charge that a walking house fly generates.
- Health & Medicine
Indoor tanning ups all skin cancer rates
Artificial sunbathing using ultraviolet lights increases the risk of all types of skin cancer.
- Health & Medicine
Chill Out: Mild hypothermia aids heart attack recovery
Icing down patients who have just had a heart stoppage may boost their survival chances and prevent brain damage in those who pull through.
- Tech
Beam Team: Unusual laser emits a band of light
A novel laser on a microchip emits a band of light rather than the single, pure color usually expected from a laser.
- Health & Medicine
Suspicious DNA: Chromosome study homes in on Alzheimer’s disease
Several human chromosomes now face intensified scrutiny for possibly harboring genes involved in Alzheimer's disease.
- Archaeology
Almond Joy, Stone Age Style: Our ancestors had a bash eating wild nuts
New finds at a 780,000-year-old Israeli site indicate that its ancient residents used stone tools to crack open a variety of hard-shelled nuts that were gathered as a dietary staple.
- Humans
And Counting . . . : Latest census resets U.S. population clock
The 2000 census missed a little more than 1 percent of the nation’s population, due in part to a surge of undocumented immigrants to the United States in the late 1990s.
- Ecosystems
Cryptic Invasion: Native reeds harbor aggressive alien
A mild-mannered reed native to the United States is getting blamed for the mayhem caused by an evil twin.
- Health & Medicine
Vaccine Power: Immune cells target cancerous tissue
Researchers are enlisting a person's own immune system to attack prostate tissue, including cancerous cells.
- Astronomy
The Milky Way’s Middle
Sensitive X-ray, infrared, and radio telescopes are now providing an extraordinarily clear view of the dust-shrouded center of our galaxy.
- Materials Science
Materials Take Wing
Materials scientists are finding new uses for the billions of pounds of feathers produced each year by the poultry industry.
