More Stories from the December 7, 2002 issue
- Health & Medicine
Protein may signal heart problems
A protein already linked to inflammation is also a strong predictor of heart problems.
- Planetary Science
Seeing Saturn
After 5 years of interplanetary travel, the Saturn-bound Cassini spacecraft has taken its first picture of the ringed planet.
- Health & Medicine
A hot new therapy?
Spending time in a sauna improves heart function in people with chronic heart failure.
- Health & Medicine
Cycling and surgery have similar effect
Among people with chest pain because of clogged heart arteries, regular exercise on a stationary bike reduced symptoms better than surgery did.
- Tech
Robotic heart surgery
By using robotic rather than conventional open-heart techniques, doctors can perform heart surgery with smaller incisions, giving patients less pain and speeding recovery.
- Health & Medicine
Keeping the beat
Muscle cells taken from embryonic rats and put into an adult rat's heart can transmit the electric signals that govern the heartbeat.
- Anthropology
Script Delivery: New World writing takes disputed turn
Researchers announced, to considerable controversy, that inscriptions found on artifacts at an Olmec site in southeastern Mexico represented the earliest known writing system in the Americas.
- Health & Medicine
Jarring Result: Extreme biking can hurt men’s fertility
Men who maintain grueling mountain-bicycling programs are apt to have lower sperm counts than nonbikers are.
- Animals
Frogs Play Tree: Male tunes his call to specific tree hole
Borneo's tree-hole frog may come as close to playing a musical instrument as any wild animal does. [With audio file.]
- Health & Medicine
Cluster Bombs: Metabolic syndrome tied to heart disease deaths
Men with a certain cluster of metabolic characteristics are about three times as likely to die of heart disease as men without the traits are.
- Materials Science
Nanotube ID: New signatures aid nanotech progress
Researchers have developed a means for rapidly distinguishing among 33 semiconducting varieties of carbon nanotubes.
- Astronomy
Hubble Weighs In: Pinning down an extrasolar planet’s mass
Using a decades-old technique, astronomers have precisely measured the mass of a planet outside our solar system.
- Tech
Deadly Bubble Bath: Ultrasound fizz kills microbes under pressure
A modest pressure increase on a liquid agitated by ultrasound dramatically boosts the microbe-killing power of those high-frequency sound waves.
- Earth
Solving Hazy Mysteries
Aerosols such as smoke, soot, and sea spray make for hazy vistas and stunning sunrises, but they also play major roles in Earth's climate and atmospheric chemistry.
- Earth
Ocean View
Ocean observatories have revealed unexpected discoveries, and now scientists want to widen the lens.
