More Stories from the June 12, 2004 issue
- Health & Medicine
Statins might fight multiple sclerosis
Cholesterol-lowering statin drugs might work against multiple sclerosis by reducing inflammation, preliminary evidence suggests.
- Chemistry
Crystal could generate pure hydrogen fuel
An organic crystal's unusual molecular-trapping behavior could help drive a new hydrogen economy.
- Health & Medicine
Americans eat faster, and more
More and more people are eating at fast-food restaurants, and they down significantly more calories on the days they do.
- Tech
Microwave mirror hits the spot
A technique for rebounding and refocusing sound also works for electromagnetic waves, possibly opening new uses ranging from improving cell phone communication to treating illness.
- Health & Medicine
Green tea takes on poison
Green tea contains a broad range of compounds that detoxify dioxin.
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Chimp DNA yields complex surprises
A molecular comparison of chromosome 22 in chimpanzees with its counterpart in people reveals surprisingly complex genetic differences between the two species.
- Tech
DNA puts its best foot forward
A robot made of DNA has taken its first steps, suggesting that such devices could eventually be used for nanoscale manufacturing.
- Physics
Corralling the Mass Maker: Hunting ground shifts for elusive particle
Hunters of the most eagerly sought particle in high-energy physics, the Higgs boson, are gleaning fresh clues about where and how to look from a new finding about another fundamental particle called the top quark.
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A Fetching Lexicon: Language clues come from dog’s vocabulary
A research team finds that a 9-year-old border collie displays a keen facility for learning word meanings, providing new support for the theory that simple types of thinking practiced by some nonhuman animals also make word learning possible in toddlers.
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Setting a Stage for Cancer: Another reason for women not to drink while pregnant
Drinking alcohol during pregnancy can cause a range of birth defects in newborns, and researchers have now shown that, in rats, it also increases the risk of breast tumors in adult offspring.
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Genetic Pickup: Did animals get brain genes from bacteria?
Genes that make brain chemicals may have been acquired from bacteria.
- Animals
Well-Tuned Bats: These animals are what they hear
Two studies of bats find that neighbors can live in virtually different worlds because their echolocation calls are tuned to detect different prey.
- Chemistry
Weighty Discovery: Chemical screening technique identifies potential anthrax drug
A new version of mass spectrometry could speed the process of drug discovery by enabling more accurate screening of thousands of chemicals at once.
- Earth
Newspaper’s Footprint: Environmental toll of all the news that’s fit to print
The environmental impacts of getting a newspaper dropped on your doorstep each morning vastly outweigh those of receiving the same information via a handheld electronic device.
- Math
Theorems for Sale
In April, an eBay auction offered math enthusiasts the rare opportunity of linking their names with one of the most famous mathematicians of the 20th century.
- Earth
Limiting Dead Zones
To limit algal blooms and the development of fishless dead zones in coastal waters, farmers and other sources of nitrate are investigating novel strategies to control nitrate runoff.
- Humans
Letters from the June 12, 2004, issue of Science News
Go with the flow In “Tales of the Undammed: Removing barriers doesn’t automatically restore river health” (SN: 4/10/04, p. 235: Tales of the Undammed), the photo comparison of the dam site is deceptive because the two photos of the same spot appear to have been taken during different seasons. Hence, the lower photo shows a […]
