More Stories from the August 24, 2002 issue
- Tech
Micromachine runs on nuclear power
Radioactivity creates electric fields that wiggle a tiny lever.
- Earth
Cigarette smoke can harm kitty, too
Compared with animals living in smokefree homes, cats who lived for some time with a smoker at least doubled their risk of developing the feline analog of the cancer non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.
- Animals
Male butterflies are driven to drink
Monarch butterflies that winter in California, especially males that had a demanding day, search out dewdrops as a water source.
- Earth
2002’s tornado tally well below average
As of August 1, barely half the usual number of tornadoes had struck the lower 48 states of the United States.
- Physics
Violent chemistry saps sonobubble energy
In liquids agitated by sound waves, imploding gas bubbles get cooled when atoms recombine, making the bubbles unlikely nuclear reactors.
- Health & Medicine
Tracking signs of memory loss
A new imaging agent may allow researchers to detect the plaques characteristic of Alzheimer's disease before symptoms are present, when therapies may be most effective.
- Plants
Sunflower genes don’t fit pattern
Comparison between crop and wild sunflower genes suggests that the plant followed an easy route to domestication.
- Ecosystems
Plants hitch rides with box turtles
In the pine rocklands of southern Florida, at least nine plant species find new homes by traveling through a turtle's gut.
- Math
Math Prizes: Honors for connecting number theory, geometry, and algebra
Fields Medals were awarded to two mathematicians, Laurent Lafforgue and Vladimir Voevodsky, who forged new links between different branches of mathematics.
-
Anthrax Stopper: Viral enzyme detects, kills bacterium
A virus that preys upon the anthrax bacterium produces an enzyme that can be exploited to detect and kill the biowarfare agent.
- Earth
Global Impact: Space object may have spread debris worldwide
Sediments laid down about 3.47 billion years ago in what are now western Australia and eastern South Africa contain remnants of what may have been an extraterrestrial-object impact large enough to disperse debris over the entire planet.
- Planetary Science
Lost in Space: Comet mission appears to have broken apart
A spacecraft that had just begun its journey to two comets has fallen silent and may have broken apart.
- Physics
Peer Pressure in Numbers: Physicists model the power of social sway
A mathematical model of peer-influenced behavior may help explain some unexpected patterns that have been observed in financial data and bird populations.
- Materials Science
A Cut above the Ordinary: Low-tech machining yields coveted nanostructure
A new finding that machining of metals imparts a hard, fine-grained structure to turnings and other scraps may lead to less costly but more durable parts for cars and other applications.
- Animals
What’s the Mane Point? Foes and females both have role
The condition of a lion's mane apparently advertises high-quality mates to picky females and wards off male adversaries.
-
All about Me: Left brain may shine spotlight on self
Experiments with a split-brain patient suggest that left-hemisphere structures contribute to the conscious understanding of oneself.
- Health & Medicine
Cooking Up a Carcinogen
The discovery that acrylamide—a known animal carcinogen—forms in many foods as they fry or bake has prompted the development of an international research network to investigate whether it poses a threat.
- Paleontology
Sea Dragons
About 235 million years ago, as the earliest dinosaurs stomped about on land, some of their reptilian relatives slipped back into the surf, took on an aquatic lifestyle, and became ichthyosaurs—Greek for fish lizards.
